/lit/ - Literature

>>23011039
what makes a japanese novel a light novel? is it like young adult novels in the west?

>>23011039
That time I got reincarnated as a slime
Mushoku tensei

>>23011045
You don't need a properly functioning brain to read it. A 6-year-old could probably read them just fine.

>>23011059
so 95% of literature would be considered light novels?

>>23011039
The only valid answer is Fate/Zero and Kara no Kyoukai. Still can't believe they weren't ever officially released in English while I have true and honest physical copies of their translations in my native tongue (fucking Polish kek)

>>23011059
Nuh uh, some light novels are really deep and complex

>>23011045
it's literally anime in words

>>23011039
Bakemonogatari, but only in the original Japanese

>>23011039
Tearmoon Empire Story

It is about a princess who has to save her country from destruction. Mia-sama is one of the best main characters in a novel. She has a lot of foresight and is more or less a Stoic sage, but given her circumstances, she has a hard time saving her country.

>>23011429
Wait, why aren't we cranking these out then?

>>23011578
4chan posters can only write violent schitzo books with the unreliable narrators

>>23011697
What's a schitzo book?

>>23012341
books by schitzos, for schitzos with schitzo characters, non-linear order of events, unreliable narrators, tonal and stylistic inconsistency, poor grammar, odd obsessions with disorganized loose associations between topics, and themes that only make sense in the disordered mind of schitzos.

>>23011039
Baccano!

>>23011578

well /mlp/ once wrote a book...

>>23011039
kino no tabi
haruhi suzumiya
boogiepop
the only light novels with any real literary merit to them

>>23012400
Baccano is great. Garden of Sinners is good too.

>>23011547
Sex with Mia (mentally 20, physically 12).

>>23011578
I'm trying but I can't garner an audience and I'm too embarrassed to shill like a fool

None

And with that said, it's time for your punishment...

AKU. SOKU. ZAN.

spice & wolf
ascendance of bookworm
/thread

>>23011476
>but only in the original Japanese
Well sucks to be then

>>23011045
Light novels are typically easier to read than regular novels. They're short, less kanji-heavy, use more basic characters, have fewer lines per page, feature illustrations, and sometimes have furigana too to help recognize the kanji reading. Of course, there are really flagrant exceptions too, there are no hard rules, and the line is blurry

>>23013536
Updooted

The closest LNs have gotten to being true lit are Welcome to the NHK! and Humanity has Declined

>>23011045
The Western equivalent was a dime store novel, basically low brow sci-fi, fantasy, detective books written at a level anyone 12+ could read and often closet related to comics and cartoons. You’d find a dime store novel about Batman or whatever. Light novels are the Japanese equivalent, only they’re all related to anime and manga because Japan is unironically a society of repressed manchildren. Westerners always ask if they’re lit because they like them and are so dumbed down now that they cannot grasp that these are low brow trash written for children. By all means, they should read whatever they want, including light novels. I read the Monogatari series and other light novels when I was younger. I had fun. I didn’t pretend they were high brow works of literature. I never will. Because they’re not. They’re just slightly better than visual novels or comic books.

>>23011578
There’s no demand for Western creators of anime shit. It destroys the Japan fantasy for weebs. There was one guy who was ethnically Japanese and fluent that I talked to on here a few times who wrote a light novel about soap or something that was wildly successful. I think he got away with it because he was Japanese and used a Japanese pen name.

>>23014341
What makes you think the Western sphere is beyond this? Look at Sanderson. I unironically think Mushoku Tensei is better than any of his books.

>>23011039
As other anons have said, LNs are good, but they tend to be the popcorn flicks of the literary world.

>>23014348
Brandon Sanderson is trash literature but his novels are like Shakespeare compared to 99% of light novel trash.

>>23011045
Light novels have some of the most atrocious prose imaginable. They're more like monologues or role play sessions than actual novels.

>>23014389
It's because there's a filter of shit, especially for English translations
>LN authors write WNs as rough drafts
>If those are popular enough, they don't edit them and just publish
>If those are shitty, you now have a poorly-written LN in Japanese
>Those LNs get translated, and generally by a shitty translator
>Now you have a LN with atrocious prose because it's an unpolished first draft that gets translated by someone who barely knows Japanese

>>23014407
Don't blame the translator. They are literally called "light novels." The translator has fuck all to work with.

How do you translate "Guu...?? GWWAAAAAAAaaaaa!!!!" in a way that isn't fucking cringe and a total embarrassment to read? I bet it was written exactly the same in Japanese, except with more em dashes instead of As. Did the original have two question marks and four exclamation points? I wouldn't be surprised. It is a "light novel" after all.

Reverend Insanity

>>23014407
Complete cope. These read at a 5th grade level in Japanese. They are quite literally mass produced to be consumed by the dumber junior high school boys in the country.

>>23014407
>NOOOOOOOOOOO, ITS THE FIRST DRAFT, SHITTY TRANSLATOR, YOU CAN'T TRANSLATE JAPANESE, SHITTY PUBLISHER, THE AUTHOR WASN'T TRYING, SHITTY EDITING, SHITTY PROOFREADING, RARE 1/100 BAD LN......
Just admit that it's low-brow trash, though sometimes enjoyable. Stop deluding yourself.

>>23014457
Webnovels are not the same as lightnovels. Putting that aside, the plot and characters are already there, but the shitty prose in RI ruins it for me. God do I dream of reading FY's internal monologues and plans with actual good prose.

>>23014407
>reading a "Baby Novel."
>prose is "goo goo gah gah"
>actually it's a lot better if you speak baby.

i love light novels (:

>>23014389
honestly i think this is fucking kino

>>23014492
Well, it's time to graduate mate. Start with Weird Tales.

>>23014453
>>23014461
>>23014463
>>23014477
>Anons literally unable to understand my post
I never thought LNs would be at a writing level too high for some anons on /lit/, but there's a first time for everything.

I am literally Ayanokouji :)

>>23014505
Unironically read Reverend Insanity. Usually, I wouldn't suggest it since the prose is actual garbage, but if you can stand the prose of LNs, then it should be fine. Ren Zu's short stories were fucking kino. Some of the best stuff I read outside of published novels.

>>23014502
No, I understood you loud and clear. The fact is that the shitty prose doesn't change from draft to draft, and is still trash at the end of the day. Though I guess you could make the argument that the final draft looks better than the first. But that's like comparing something that has just started to rot, and something that's already rotted.

No one can refute this: Lightnovels, litrpgs, and webnovels are mass-produced consumer products targeting dopamine-overdosed, mind-broken retards that don't value quality. The saddest part is when these retards delude themselves into thinking that they're actually reading something of high quality. There's a small border between enjoyment and delusion, and a lot of the time, some people never make it back. They immerse themselves in the abyss of trash, bathing in the feces of hastily crafted slop, gradually merging with it, and knowing only that.

"How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom" is my favorite. LNs are breezy, enjoyable page-turners that, for me, serve as palette cleansers between denser prose. I'm glad they exist, since you get some inventive premises that you'd likely never read anywhere else. They're fun. Schlock but I don't eat junk food and the time investment isn't that big of a loss.

>>23011039
Haruki Murakami

>>23014341
Ah, pulps. Gotcha.

Why doesn't /lit/ crank out pulps?

>>23014583
Does it still count as pulp if you don't use wood pulp paper?

Light novels are unfathomably bad and are written worse than most books geared towards 2nd graders.

There is one exception, and that’s Welcome to the NHK. Mishima and Dazai and Murakami wish they could write something as important as it. They could only dream of writing a story that speaks to the human condition on such a revealing level. Drugs and pedophilia and loneliness and love and neuroticism. Mishima writes a 400 page book on how shiny a building is and everyone calls him brilliant. Bullshit.

>>23011039
86: Eighty-Six is the best light novel.

>>23014593
Pulp is a style more than it is a medium. That was just a nickname to describe the style. Nowadays genuine pulp stories of old are reprinted on just as nice of paper as upscale fiction.

>>23014583
No real demand for pulp novels in the West. YA and sffg are not exactly pulp fiction and those are what sell. So the real question is why /lit/ doesn’t write YA and sffg. Some do. Most don’t. I suspect they don’t want to or don’t read enough of it to know how to.

>>23013536
Let's all love Whoro

The author reveals in volume 16 that his influences include The Golden Bough, The Bible, Schopenhauer, and some old French book about medieval economics

>>23014453
Translators are 90% of the reason LNs are seen as trash literature. The original author didn't put in typos, repeated words, awkward sentence structures, incoherent lines that miss the point, nor did they mistake subject and object in sentences, mix up character names, erase the characters' speech patterns, go out of their way to reinvent terms and then use them wrong, or write prose that sounds like an Indian exchange student's first attempt at English, or commit any other such blunders that have become identifying traits of LN translations. In Japanese, the writing is at least correct, readable Japanese.

>>23014655
Well shit.

>>23014734
There’s a lot of room for crossover between literary fiction, poetry, and genre fiction in general actually. I mean, just look at the now enormous popularity of Blood Meridian. Sword and sorcery fantasy in particular is practically begging for a similar novel.

>>23014671
Now you fucked up. You see, you dumb nigger, I can actually read Japanese. So I can find the original Japanese text of that shitty light novel on amazon. Let's look at it together, shall we?

You see that right there? That ウウオオオオオオオオオオオオオオオオオオオオオツ!! that goes across the entire fucking page? That means "Uuoooooooooooooh!" It's even got the double exclamation points. Double exclamation points isn't proper grammar in English or Japanese. This shit is fucking stupid, and so are you for pulling that same bullshit excuse Muslims do when presented with evidence that the Quran is shit. This translation is extremely accurate. Go eat a dick.

>>23014744
kek

>>23014389
and here's part of the same page. Even if you can't read Japanese you should be able to spot where the dying minotaur says "Guu...?? GWWAAAAaaa!!!!!" Good job, translator-san. You get a 100% for accuracy.

>>23014743
> Sword & Sorcery Blood Meridian
I do not know if I have it in me, but I have read BM and Conan so I could at least try.

>>23014779
Dude, no. I’m not saying to copy Blood Meridian. I’m saying to do what Blood Meridian did in the Western but in sword and sorcery fantasy. In other words, write sword and sorcery fantasy that is actually good!

>>23014782
Right. I didn't mean copy either. I meant that I don't know if I have it in me because I don't know if I can write on CM's level. Maybe not even REH. However, again, I can at least try.

>>23014806
If you keep at it with focused and consistent thoughtful effort, the chance that you can make a contribution which is your unique and best contribution is maximized. Remember that.

>>23014774
But there is no sentense that ends with "??" in that screenshot. Why are you lying?????
>>23014744
I love how you entire "argument" is just saying that "!!" isnt proper grammar, as if there aren't writers who outright ignore some proper grammar norms and yet considered as good.

>>23014535
>The fact is that the shitty prose doesn't change from draft to draft
You sound like a guy who gives up on first failure and then makes up excuses for it

>>23014341
>I didn’t pretend they were high brow works of literature. I never will. Because they’re not
And why is that?

>>23011045
The title of the book has to be a paragraph or longer.

>>23014924
Sure thing. If nothing else, it would be neat if I found myself associated with a "New S&S" trend that mysteriously sprouts up around the same time I publish my work. Hell, I'll call it a victory if I so much as inspire someone else through my work.

>>23015055
Why don’t you read one? Pick any popular light novel. When you get to the part where the main character gushes blood out of his nose because he saw healer loli’s panties like a damn cartoon, all written as if by a 4th grader on their iPhone, then you might have an idea why they’re not high brow literature.

I am guilty of enjoying the occasional trash anime, be that isekai or high-school battle harem. But every time I wanted to try out the LN when seasons ended, I was always confronted with the absolute biggest piles of steaming shit imaginable.
They all read like bad anime scripts and none of the fat trimmed off. Without pretty pictures to look at and somewhat decent VAs to give these characters some semblance of life it falls into the deepest pits of trash imaginable.
The average fanfic is miles ahead because they often feature at least an artistic expression and desire from the author..
Something that stuff like "I was a washing machine but after getting hit by a Zeppelin aircraft in a Boca Raton Air BnB I got reincarnated as the kings 12th daughter villainess with level 72 otamatone playing skills" usually can't bring to the table.

Also:
Ayanokouji-kun is LITERALLY me.

>>23014505
>>23015288
How can you both be Ayanokouji?

>>23011039
>tfw no suzune gf

>>23014583
I think the difference is that light novels, the level of tension and suspense is usually ultra low. Whatever obstacles the protagonist runs into, he usually just plows through them with minimal effort. Western pulps followed more of the Lester Dent outline where you have a bunch of try-fail cycles, and things get progressively worse until the hero ultimately succeeds.

>>23014655
Self publishing is the new pulp

>>23014774
>ミノタウロの蹄。
What? That's a sentence? It literally just means "Minotaur hoof." What is the minotaur's hoof doing?

>>23011578
F Gardner is

I'm currently going through the Seikai series, after having watched the animay.

Good fun desu

>>23014341
>They’re just slightly better than visual novels
Kill yourself. There's nothing 'light' about nakige. It's as serious as anything can be

>>23018795
Kanon <3

>>23011039
Boogiepop

>>23012400
>>23014389
>Uoohhhh??

>>23016976
Maybe read the next sentence too?

>>23014407
You forgot this part
>if Yen Press is the translation company they just cut out large paragraphs randomly

>>23011039
If I held a high enough position I would change trade laws to increase taxes on light novels just enough to make them not worth publishing in the west.

>>23021046
I don‘t like that girls have sent me this face enough times in response to something they thought was cute that I now want to fuck it

>>23011039
classroom is a great series.it's just too long
would be much better if the author compressed the story a bit
this leads to the actual problem with Lns
the light novel industry now functions as a gate keeper of fantasy and science fiction
. any Japanese author worth their salt are now bound to publish their works as light novels to possibly get any exposition or popularity (releasing their works as simply fantasy or sci fi won't get anywhere in japan) and now not only have to pace their stories by light novel standards (30 volumes...) they have to share the shelves with absolute garbage.
some great authors get lucky and get the recognition(pic related) they deserve, but it's very rare.most will either stay obscure or get swamped in all the other mass produced shit

While there are lots of shitty LN's. Mainly coming from WN's. There are also plenty of great LN's:

付喪堂骨董店―“不思議”取り扱います
終末なにしてますか? 忙しいですか? 救ってもらっていいですか?
86
月光
神栖麗奈シリーズ
星界の紋章
etc, etc

Sukamoka is good too, but not as good as the prequel as there are relatively more fillers.

>>23014389
it's a virgin to chad story
give him a break for the tedious squealing.
Though i do understand how the non-existent prose would annoy people used to something better

as light novel reader though, i can assure even the most generic stories written by people who genuinely love fantasy from the bottom of their heart are still a billion times better than western produced slop written by political tourists and women who have an axe to grind with the patriarchy

oh also here is the ost for the very mediocre anime adaptation
i won't say much,just listen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWlfyXi0KYs

>>23023214
>eighty shits
>great LN
lmao

>>23023086
>mushoku tensei
>good
el oh el

>>23023281
Well, what's so bad about it? Surely you can provide actual criticism instead of just going "it sucks lmao"?

>>23012400
Baccano!

>>23021046
what the hell is this supposed to mean?

>>23023214
86 is boring edgy shit, no amount of garter belt shall convince me to keep reading it. Kamisu reina is literal japanese teenage psychological stuff, tho still better than most.

>>23023405
>Kamisu Reina is an extremely dark and thought provoking mystery series.
Aaand dropped. That description pretty much guarantees it's actually dogshit.

>>23016864
>Self publishing is the new pulp
Really? How are they typically published? Alternately, where would a prospective writer post such work?

>>23023405
86 is about the human condition and human nature when humans are pushed to extreme situations. It's how humans can strive to achieve happiness in that kind of situation. There's lots of interesting themes in there: that you can only recognize what's important in life after going through hell and back, that there is no such thing as universal morality that applies to every situation, etc.

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not good.

Have you ever considered the fact that you just have shit taste? Garter Belt is godly fashion sense.

>>23023648
It is written by a woman, therefore I won't read it. Simple as.

>>23011039
Unironically Konosuba, infamous shitpost series that it was, goes pretty deep into Aqua's own questions about the nature of divinity and her fears related to both the prospect of "What happens if a God were to die" reflecting on her own mortality as well as her place as heaven's metaphorical Sin Eater and whipping child, being both the only one keeping things running while also being near universally despised.

>>23011045
The only hard criteria is that they have a few pixiv-style illustrations

>>23023350
Wonder if it will ever finish

>>23023648
don't just talk about the themes or topics a particular work to say how great the work is. i can list you countless of trashy isekai manga that have the things that you mention and... eh oh... they are just another wave of disposable wastes that in the next decade shall horrify the sucker who shall have to dispose them since there's no consumer. (you people should see what i have seen during one time buying old books, the mass of grotesque senseless and badly drawn yakuza-like manga in front of my eyes was the last nail in the coffin that made me decided being culturally grotesque is not something chinese and korean exclusive)
it's all subjective whether you like it or not of course, no need to say that. though i'm not one who vaguely recommend it out of nowhere in the same halfhearted marketing way in anywhere. i'm already out of the phase of still finding my anime waifu acting militarily as something enjoyable, and so are lots of people who still bother to waste time on a hobby that doesn't even suit their age. not to say deep down the targeted demographics may actually just enjoy the illustrations more than the story which just resembles the bleak parts of their horrendous daily school life. the thing the japanese can do the most beautifully is ecchi/hentai, and they should stick to that, not stories about going through puberty
the last sentence is your misreading since i don't read light novels whose illustrations don't have cute girls wearing black pantyhose

>>23023336
What exactly is so fucking good about it? It's badly written slop built around the groundbreaking message of "war is awful". The good guys are super competent and right about everything, everyone else is always wrong, comically evil, and retarded. The story tries to set up this nobody's safe-atmosphere, but then the core cast refuses to die even if they're killed. The narrative is jarringly repetitive, laughably melodramatic, predictable, hamfisted trash built on tropes.

>>23026005

I'm not gonna write an entire essay for you, do your own research.

The story is really more Nietzsche inspired. It's a story about becoming master of ourselves, take joy in existing, breaking the chains in society and its culture in which we are raised. It's a metaphor for how being alive is a battle to survive right from the moment you are born. What makes you decide not to commit suicide at any given moment from how awful and painful the world is? The Legions are just there to make the threat itself more pronounced and obvious to all of humanity. It makes the point that it is better to die fighting, than survive as a cattle by doing nothing. Are you happy by just being alive, and doing nothing else? Also, one of the better LN's with non-shitty prose and reads like an actual SF novel.

It's not about being good or evil, but it's about showing the difference between people who can think for themselves and those who cannot. It's the same thing in society. Society is held up by the few elites who actually know what they're doing, and the rest just following like sheep. This also reflects in the naming of Legion's ranks using white sheep, black sheep, shepherds, etc. Later on, they show other countries fighting the Legion as well. They have different culture, morals, and history and none of them are wrong. It just shows human nature with how people react to extreme situations: there are those who act like cattle, pull down others, and wait for others to save them, and others who fight teeth and nail to live another day.

If that interest you, great. If not, I don't give a shit.

>>23011039
Mother of Learning and The lord of Mysteries are easily better than 99% of all published fiction.
Especially modern fiction. Cant remember the last time i couldn't put the book down.

Name a series with better cover art
>(You) can't

>>23014655
>No real demand for pulp novels in the West.
Makes sense given we have visual mediums for those kinds of stories now.

>>23026611
I don't know about that. Plenty of visual media are downstream from the printed word.

>>23026489
This is THE best light novel currently available to read. Pure unadultered kino

I thought the first Boogiepop novel was completely serviceable as a YA work. I guess it's cheating though because it is the one that started it all so it was written to be mere pulp rather than "a light novel".

>>23026472
>web novel garbage
>better than anything

>>23014744
LMAO, Fucking hilarious, pretending to be able to read Japanese, and not even getting the correct page of the scene.

That scene that you posted in Japanese is the introduction of when the Minotaur appeared and Bell running around, while the English page is the Minotaur's dying scream.

Let's just translate the last sentence:

足を取られ、ゴロゴロとダンジョンの床を転がる。
「フゥー、フゥーッ……!」
「うわわわわわわわわっ……!?」

Losing my footing, I fell and rolled around the flooring of the dungeon.
"*Heavy Breathing sounds*"
"Waaaahhh!!!"

So no there is no dying minotaur in the page you referenced.

While I don't really want to defend the prose of the average LN, the lengths people go through to defend shitty translators is hilarious. Thanks for letting everyone know you are an MTLer complaining about prose.

For better or worse, the average LN prose is around the same level as YA novels. It just appears worst than it really is due to the language barrier and translators who have zero writing skills.

うわ、日本語知らないくせに、日本語の文章の良さを語ったやがる。