The closest parallel in the Western world is probably the distinction between mass-market popular fiction and higher level literary fiction. This distinction is Lost in Translation because Japanese is one of the only languages in the world where multiple writing systems are routinely used in the same sentence. Modern light novels use simpler, easier-to-read everyday kanji as opposed to "hard" novels, which generally contain much older words which, even for Japanese readers, may necessitate keeping a dictionary on hand to understand. While many people believe that the word "light" in the name means the novel is short (and they usually don't last much longer than 200 pages, somewhere between a long novella or a very short novel) or that it uses manga-style illustrations, the truth is that this actually refers to the text inside. Due to the nature of the illustrators, many Light Novels out at the moment are Ecchi to capitalize on their talents. There are also a relatively large number of translated yaoi light novels. Back in the 2000s and early 2010s, very few of them had made their way to English-language markets, but this changed around 2013 when Yen Press created a successful strategy of marketing them to the people who read novels and not just anime/manga fans. Light novels are very popular in Japan, chiefly among teenagers and young adults.
While related to Manga and Anime, light novels are actually prose, written in short paragraphs and conversational language for fast reading and interspersed with manga-style illustrations.
0 kommentar(er)
