What is a Light Novel?

There are many types of media that are specific to Japan. Light novels fall under that category. They are a mix of manga and novels in a way. The length of your run of the mill light novel is 50,000 words, or 300 pages, much like its older cousin the novel. They are mostly aimed at teenagers in high school and young adults.

The majority of light novels are serialized. Once the series is done, the publishes will release it in book form. Each light novel has a certain amount of illustrated pages. Those illustrated pages do not always convey the plot of the book. At times they do not even have anything to do with the plot itself. The illustrations are styled similar to manga or anime.

There is a lot of crossover from light novels to manga and anime, but not the other way around.

What makes a light novel?

The root of this media can be found in pulp magazines. Those types of magazines were struggling to produce a profit during the 1970s. So, in an attempt to gain more readers, as well as a younger base of readers, they started to incorporate illustrations into their stories. In addition to that, they also began to write about favorite anime, manga, and video games properties.

The most prominent magazines that have evolved from that change are:

• Faust

• The Sneaker

• Dengeki HP

• Gekkan Dragon Magazine

The light novel market in Japan is still expanding. Magazines are always in need of good, raw, young talent. That is why there are many yearly festivals and competitions to find the next big thing.

The biggest competition by far is “The Dengeki Novel Prize”.

Each year over 7000 young authors fights for their right to become a famous light novel author. Every year there are over 30 million books of this sort published in Japan.

The average price of a light novel (in book form) is around $500 Japanese yen, which is approximately $5 US dollars. There are many English translations available.

Some of the most notable publishers are:

• Seven Seas Entertainment

• Tokyopop

• Viz

• DMP

• Dark Horse

• Yen Press

• Del Rey Manga

The majority of authors that write light novels are Japanese. But since the growing global popularity of anime and anime-related products, more and more westerners are trying to make it as a light novel author. One such example is the Brazilian- Japanese author of The immensely popular series No Game No life.

Difference between manga and light novel

People often mix up light novels with the manga. Manga relies on drains and illustration to convey the story or plot. Both words and drawings matter for manga, but they can also be entirely without words (such as Blame by Tsutomu Nihei). Light novels can, but most often do not need illustrations for the plot.

In light novels illustrations are mostly used to attract readers and are mostly portraits of characters or depictions of a scene from the book. A sort of aesthetic sign that this is the type of media made for them.