Have you heard of the Japanese Light Novel? This word is very common when we talk about anime nowadays, where most are based on and derived from light novel works and not manga like in the past.
In this article we will deeply analyze the meaning of Light Novel, what are the differences between these books and other common literature, some curiosities and recommendations of famous light novels.
Table of Content
What does light novel mean?
Light novel [ライトノベル] comes from English and means light, clear and light romance. Light novel they are basically normal books, but they have illustrations on some pages and are divided into several volumes.
The name romance does not necessarily indicate that the book is love stories, for that you would have to delve deeper into the meaning of the word Novel. In the same way that novels are not always novels.
The term “light reading” probably comes from the simplicity of Japanese novels. Even though the book has hundreds of pages and volumes, they are called light readings because of the direct way the author tells the story.
Usually ordinary books are complex readings that not every young person would be able to understand. The purpose of the Light Novel is to easily reach as many audiences as possible. Just like Stephen King's books.
More information and characteristics of a Light Novel will be mentioned below when we mention the differences between a Book and a Light Novel.
The Japanese also call the Light novels in ranob [ラノベ] or rainobe [ライノベ].
How did the Light Novels come about?
Light novels are initially published as serials, usually in magazines or online, and then released and bound into books. Many of these works originated from blogs on the internet.
With the proliferation of the habit of reading in Japan, light novels have grown into the most varied forms of publication, from the traditional serials in newspapers, through literary magazines and even for Smartphones.
The content of these light readings was influenced by mangas and even popular movies like Star Wars. Light novels can also be considered an evolution of pulp magazines.
In the 1970s, most Japanese pulp magazines, using manga-style covers, began placing illustrations at the beginning of each story, and including articles on popular movies, anime, and video games.
This ended up causing almost every Light Novel to have manga-style illustrations on its cover and in the middle of each chapter of the story. Usually, a volume has about 15 to 20 illustrations and even comes with a pôster.
Differences between a book and a light novel
Light Novel is basically a book, and with many pages. Yet there are many differences between an ordinary book or ordinary literature and a light novel. Shall we analyze some of these differences?
Light novels are usually 100 to 300 pages long and are released in volumes. Usually famous Light Novels receive up to more than 20 volumes, being as extensive as a manga work.
A chapter of a Light novel usually has around 5000 to 7000 words. A complete volume (book) usually has 40,000 words, and is often divided into 5 chapters of around 200 pages.
What differentiates a Light Novel most is its language, which usually has a vocabulary easily understood by teenagers and adults, full of slang, popular terms and written in short paragraphs.
Light Novels use few easy-to-understand ideograms or ideograms, while other traditional Japanese books have complex ideograms, where some Japanese even need to resort to a dictionary.
Another factor that greatly differentiates Japanese Literature for a Light Novel is the stories, many of these books are aimed at young audiences, have fanciful stories, or about teenagers, school life, even action and fighting.
It is difficult to explain the difference between books and light novels in English, since many of these differences are lost in the translation from Japanese to English.
Trivia about Light Novels
Have you noticed that most Light Novels have giant titles? Exactly, many authors went on a wave of putting the name of their books as if it were the synopsis of the story.
It is common to have books and anime with giant titles like "私の妹がこんなに可愛いわけがない" or "あの日見た花の名前を僕たちはまだ知らない。" and this is just the beginning.
Most of the Light Novels released nowadays follow this trend of long and funny names. We even wrote an article talking about the gigantic names of Light Novels and Animes.
Another interesting fact is that generally Light Novels, despite having few illustrations, are also done in black and white. Only the cover and illustrations at the beginning of the book are colored and printed on strong paper.
Some examples of Light Novels that became popular in Japan are: Sword Art Online, Toradora, Zero no Tsukaima, Accel World, Monogatari Series, and many others. A large portion of the anime you know are adaptations of a Light Novel and not of a manga.
Light Novel in the West
Between 2000 and 2010, Light Novels were not well-known in the West. Their success came in 2013 when Yen Press created a business strategy to bring Light Novels to the West in English.
In Brazil, Light Novels took longer to reach the hands of Brazilians. One of the first Light Novels published in Brazil was No Game No Life, written by a Brazilian and popularized by its anime.
In fact, the first Light Novels translated into Portuguese were yaoi stories. The NewPOP Publishing House launched in 2010 the books Gravitation and Tarot Café, becoming popular for bringing alternative works.
The publisher also brought Madoka, No.6, Fate, Log Horizon, Re:Zero, Toradora, Zero no Tsukaima and Shakugan no Shana. Thanks to this provision, in 2018 competing publishers also started translating Light Novels.