A Second Opinion on Light Novels

Benjamin Cheah talks Japanese light novels over at his site:

Light novels are short, inexpensive books on fast release schedules. Running to about 50,000 characters, they are small and lightweight, able to be carried about and read anywhere. This mirrors the pulp practice of publishing compact, fast-paced stories on equally compressed schedules. Well-loved in Japan and around the world, many LNs have been translated and exported across the world. But how do modern LNs compare to the pulps?

Consider light novels the Young Adult version of the pulps, where Japanese pulps shifted audience and added manga-inspired art to court an audience. They are very much direct descendants of the pulps, and in that peculiarly Japanese manner, freely steal and give homage to their forebears, both Japanese and American. But Cheah takes these pulps descendants to task:

Japanese light novels may mimic the format and publishing schedules of the pulps, but they do not necessarily live up to the standards established by the pulps. While some concepts and nuance may be lost in translation, if the base material is little more than dross, a translation won't produce diamonds. 

To be clear, there are light novels worthy of your time and money. JimFear138 recommended Vampire Hunter D. But by and large, even the most popular LNs today tend to have subpar writing, so much so that by Western standards they would be considered amateurish or even unpublishable. 

Why, then, are they so well-loved?

In a word, escapism. And there's an emotional need being filled, whether its adolescent power fantasies, salarymen looking back at happier and freer times, or the heady mix of spicy writing and adventure. 

Check out Cheah's article for a more in-depth contrast of LN writing to the pulp masters.

It's funny that this article should pop up while I was trudging through a selection of current LNs. I do have my favorites, but those, strangely enough, have more literary aspirations (Bakemonogatari, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Legend of the Galactic Heroes). A few thoughts to add:

1. LNs and English YA appear to currently be playgrounds for immature 20 and 30-something adults instead of teen-oriented writing.

2. If D&D-cloned fantasy is Pink Slime, much of isekai is Blue Slime. Not because of VD's Pink vs. Blue audience mechanic, but because much of isekai patterns itself after video games such as Dragon Quest, down to the very bestiary--including the mascot blue slimes of DQ.

3. Translation matters more than Benjamin Cheah touched upon. It won't turn lead into gold, but it sure does turn gold into lead. Worse, thirty years of fan translations of anime, manga, and LNs have conditioned English-speaking fans to demand lead instead of gold. Whether poor writing or poor translations, I've learned more about what doesn't work in writing and story from light novels than other types of story.

That said, some classic anime were adapted from light novels, such as Slayers, so they're doing something right...