Originally published in "Anime Dimension Live"

Text: Doremi

In fact, all literary works represent an attitude towards life, experiencing life from literature, and regurgitating the drama of life into literature. The light novel is a literary form that has excellent qualities in terms of literature, storytelling, and entertainment. The first time I first came into contact with Japanese light novels was about 3 years ago, and the first book I read was "Literary Girl", which ended in its entirety, and in the process of reading, I was constantly attracted by the plot of the book, and then I deliberately looked up a lot of information about the writers and works mentioned in the book. Since then, I've been paying special attention to light novels, and unconsciously being deeply brought into the works by various humorous, sad, warm, or confused plots, and the number of readings has increased day by day. Most of the light novels are simple and bright, not obscure, and the authors read guò works, showing readers the interesting stories and simple and easy-to-understand life philosophies they have realized in life and literature, so that every time people read a book, they will make readers smile.

In this article, a lot of things about light novels are introduced, from the origin to the present, whether it is the light novel itself or the entire industry, there has been great progress, I sincerely hope that readers will understand and love this kind of light novel that does not make a big sense and just tells interesting stories lightly.

1. It's rude, I'm a "light novelist"

When it comes to light novels, the first thing that needs to be introduced is the origin of its name. Light novel,Japanese called ライトノベル (light-novel),It's a Japanese English.,To put it bluntly, it's an English word invented by the Japanese.,There are many theories about the origin of this noun.,But the real exact origin is no longer verifiable.。 SF@NIFTY· · The most famous term is that the readers who participated in the discussion in the Fantasy electronic conference room made up words from the meaning of "light novel". In modern times, light novels can basically be interpreted as "novels that can be easily read". It abandons the traditional notion of literature as a way of carrying the truth (but not without connotation) and replaces it with a style that allows the reader to read with ease and pleasure. In today's society where the pace of life is getting faster and faster, the idea of entertainment first in light novels is more and more recognized and loved by the majority of readers.

2. The character and characteristics of the "light novel".

Presumably, everyone has some doubts about what kind of novel can be called a light novel. There are many types of "light novels" in the world, and it is still difficult to give a clear definition of such works that cover many categories such as youth, campus, science fiction, fantasy, horror, history, and action. The main characteristics of light novels are as follows.

I'm not a teacher

As a new genre, "light novel" focuses on its "lightness". And the profound truth of "educating" the reader is a burden that light novels cannot bear. Therefore, the readership of light novels is mainly teenagers. Since most teenagers are active in thinking, innovative and challenging, it coincides with the style of light novels that put aside the big principles and are free to create. While there are relatively few ways for teenagers to relieve stress in society, light novels provide a very good means of relaxation, and let teenagers' creativity be fully unleashed in the world of words.

Please see me and know me through the text

Light novels uphold the tradition of easy reading, so when the author writes, he generally does not deliberately use very written and obscure words to tell the story, but more uses witty complaints and humorous metaphors to achieve the purpose of entertainment. Writing in ordinary colloquial language can make the reader feel good about the work. Light novels place great emphasis on composition and picture sense in writing, and strive to make readers "look at the text". It is worth mentioning that although light novels are more colloquial in writing, it definitely does not mean that light novels lack literature and connotation. In terms of content, the author does not tell the story and tell the truth to the reader from a high perspective, but describes the story that the author thinks is interesting from the same point of view as the reader.

Illustrations aren't welfare

Most light novels use a lot of comic-style illustrations and color pages on the inside pages and covers.,Strong visual effects are probably the most important feature of modern light novels.,A light novel without illustrations is like a galgame without a soundtrack and CG that makes people feel very inconsistent.。 If words are the soul of a light novel, then it is not too much to call the illustrations the finishing touch of this light novel. Later in this article, questions about authors and artists will also be covered in detail.

From the point that the style of light novels is influenced by comics and animation, and it will have anime styles and patterns, it is not difficult to see that the development of light novels is strongly influenced by animation and comics. In Japan, it was with the ACG business, which flourished in the 80s and 90s, that light novels were able to fit into the ACG industry very naturally. Thanks to the references of the manga and animation business, the light novel model is also very easy to be accepted and recognized by readers.

In fact, they are Lori

Light novels are easy to carry and inexpensive. In fact, lightness and thinness are also a major feature of "lightness", and the size of the Japanese version of the bunko book is very compact (A6 paper size), and it is not an exaggeration to call it a pocket book. In a country like Japan, where the economy is developed and the pace of life is very fast, people's lives are relatively stressful. And because of this lightweight design of light novels, people can read at any time on the bus and subway to and from work, as long as they have leisure time, they can read at seams. This not only passes the time, but also soothes the mood.

3. The coming-of-age diary of the "light novel".

Birth

In 1975, the inaugural issue of "Asahi ソノラマ Bunko" (which has been discontinued) and the first issue of Shueisha Bunko the following year marked the birth of light novels! Of course, there was no such thing as a light novel at that time. In the years that followed, the light novel market did not improve, and until 1977, only a few fiction writers, such as Suko Arai (whose masterpiece: "Hearing the Waves", was selected for the 1st Whimsical Newcomer Award) and Tsuriko Tsurumo (whose masterpiece: "Hearing the Waves", was adapted into a theatrical anime by Ghibli in 1993). It is worth mentioning that at that time, Aai Suko's use of the first person to write novels caused a great response among the young people of the time, and it was for this reason that the perspective of writing light novels became more liberal (at that time, it was mainly written in the third person····· And it's a little regrettable that the light novels of the 70s were basically shoujo novels.

Growth

In the early 80s, due to the development and growth of shoujo novels, the Izuku edition company sprung up, and many of them were eliminated in the competition. At that time, Kadokawa Shokai was very bold, at the time when the girl's novel was a big hit, Kadokawa set his sights on the works of the boys, and published the "Rhodes Island War" (ロードス島戦記), which is still famous today, and once the novel was published, it was a huge success in Japan and caused a strong response, and quickly became popular all over Asia. Taking this as an opportunity, this work has also become the source of development for countless animations, anime, games, music, toys, etc. The author's worldview setting on continents, races, weapons, and magic has become a template for the creation of fantasy novels, which is known as the pioneering work of oriental fantasy novels. Since then, the content of light novels has gradually transformed from shoujo novels to juvenile-oriented fantasy novels. After that, "Phantom Beast Boy", which tells the story of a boy who cannot escape the fate of beasthood, and "Demon City (Shinjuku)", a legendary novel set in the future Shinjuku, enlivened the hearts of the teenagers at that time.

In the late 80s, some of the more famous companies, such as Kadokawa Shoten and Fujimi Shobo, set up bunks and launched journals one after another. In 1988, Fujimi Shobo held the "1st Fujimi Shobo Fantasy Novel Awards", which further promoted the development of fantasy novels. The award-winning works of this competition are the most worthy of introduction in that period, except for "The Battle of Rhode Island". It is the 1989 Fujimi Fantasia Bunko Edition, which tells the story of a genius beautiful girl magician, and the world view setting of its novel has been highly praised. And since the animation of "Show Funny Magician", the popularity of light novels has greatly increased, and since then, major bookstores have set up special counters for light novels.

In the 90s, the development of fantasy style light novels reached its peak, and TV animation works adapted from light novels gradually appeared, among which the representative works were in the 90s, many novels were adapted into animated works, such as "Rhodes Island War", "Show Funny Magician", "Mechanical Goddess", "Heaven and Earth Are Useless". Since then, animation has become one of the communication methods commonly used in light novels.

In the 90s, the content of light novels gradually shifted from a single fantasy department to campus, suspense, science fiction and other aspects. In 1999, Fujimi Fantasia Bunko published the famous edition of "Full Metal Mania", which combined various elements such as campus, war, and science fiction, and can be called a landmark work that bridged the 90s and the 21st century. (The main part of the novel was serialized in 2010 and lasted 11 years, when will Kyoto fill this big hole?) ）

Budding to be released

In the 21st century, the content of light novels is more modern or even postmodern. At the beginning of the new century, Japan's most famous two-dimensional forum, 2ch, created a special edition of light novels, and from this, the term light novel was truly popularized. "Chino's Journey", which began serialization in 2001, and "The Sky of Urino, UFO Summer" in '03 introduced the concept of world-based light novels to readers.

After 04 years, with the launch of various light novel review bodies and awards, light novels officially entered the industrialization mode. In Japan, how exactly this industry operates, let's take a look at them one by one.

A one-in-a-hundred audition

In Japan, authors generally rely on submitting to magazines and literary awards (essay contests) to gain exposure, so as to win the favor of magazines and publishers, and for outstanding newcomers, magazines and newspapers will provide opportunities for them to write columns and serialize their works, which is also largely due to the prosperity of the Japanese magazine industry. After the column is serialized, if the reader's response to the work is good, the magazine will be published by the magazine (there are also cases of finding a new owner), and then the media in charge of literary and artistic criticism will conduct a professional book review, and put it into the market to receive the test, and the work can survive. There are more than 2,000 light novels published in Japan every year, with millions of copies in print, but given the uneven level of authors, there are only a handful of them that can be truly sold and remembered by readers. These few writers who can sell well will have other cultural industries come to negotiate the business of adapting works.

The road to "idol" after successful debut

Now the most common routine on the market is the light novel single book out of the の version to 2-3 volumes after the adaptation of comics and radio dramas, although the author of the comic is not the original light novel painter in charge, but due to the dividend of the adaptation copyright, the painter also provides a good opportunity to make money, so the painter will be very careful when drawing light novel illustrations, designing character modeling, because as long as the original work is a big seller, the corresponding various adaptations and peripheral sales profits are very high. In addition, the artist will also give some advertisements, galgame illustrations and polishes, and the more popular artists will basically publish picture books to support their families......

Compared with comics, radio dramas are also a very important part of the adaptation, and the most important point is that the light novels that have come out of radio dramas can basically be animated, and the animated version will generally use the voice actors of radio dramas, which on the one hand satisfies the readers who love the work, and on the other hand, it also satisfies the fans of the voice actors.

After a period of comics and radio dramas, popular works sometimes have OVA or theatrical animations to try to animate, and some are directly adapted into TVAnimation for broadcast. Personally, I prefer theatrical adaptations like "Literary Girl", "Empty Realm", and "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Space", because generally speaking, the quality of theatrical versions is higher than that of TVA, but "Fate/Zero", which was broadcast in the last season, also allowed us to see extremely high-quality TVA adaptations.

In addition, it is relatively rare that some works will be adapted into games, such as the PSP version of "My Sister is Not So Cute". However, because the game market is more original, such cases are rare.

Finally, and the most profitable, is that other peripheral entertainment industries will come to negotiate about the protagonist's peripheral products, such as figures, stationery, daily necessities, pillows, dolls, etc. As a result, a complex and complete industrial chain is formed. In addition, authors and artists sometimes attend events such as comic conventions or book signings to promote their works and earn popularity, and to earn some extra money to support their families. And every year on the comicmarket,The same club will also create a variety of fan works about the original.,The most famous should be the fan music work of "Literary Girl".,It's directly used in the theatrical version of the anime.。

Blossoming and fruiting

After 04, the light novel works basically run according to the above pattern. Among them, the "Haruhi Suzumiya" series released in 04 that contains sci-fi elements has achieved overwhelming results after being adapted by Kyoto Animation. Light novel elements are also mentioned several times in Kyoto's "Lucky Star". The popularity of "Cool Palace" marks the advent of the heyday of light novels. Since then, several adaptations of light novels have appeared in each season of the anime.

In 05, "This light novel is amazing!" initiated by the Japanese Takushima Society! "For the first time, this ranking ranks the popularity of works, favorite actors, and favorite actresses (the ranking of authors and artists has been added since 10 years). The results of the award polls from 2005 onwards (the '05 edition is a book for '04, similar every year) can indeed show a certain trend towards reading. At present, it can be regarded as the most authoritative ranking in Japan. In 05, the award was the super popular work "Suzumiya Haruhi" series, in 06 it was Nishio Restoration's "Jokes", in 07 "Wolf and Spices" won the championship in one fell swoop through the wisdom of doing business and cute wolves, in 08 "Full Metal Mania" returned with the blessing of the dual popularity of animation and novels, in 09 "Literary Girl" won the crown with its distinctive characters and bizarre but fascinating plot, and in 10 years it was the joyful "Dumb Quiz Summoning Beast" that won the championship. The 11-year champion was awarded to the "Catalogue of Forbidden Books of Magic", which combines many elements such as science fiction and combat.

Regarding the future development of light novels, the author makes a bold prediction here, light novels will develop in two directions, on the one hand, youth campus works will continue to be popular, on the other hand, with the development of science and technology, science fiction, urban legends type light novels will continue to increase, among which the most representative author is Kawahara Li, the perfect integration of game elements in the novel, opening up a new fertile ground for the content of light novels. However, no matter how the light novel develops, the eternal theme that never changes is -

boy－meets－girl.

4. As mentioned above, the daimyo and retainers under the eldest lady began to establish and die out in the 80s and 90s. To this day, the more famous Izushi Bunko includes Shueisha Bunko, GA Bunko, Shogakukan Bunko, Ichishunsha Bunko, and many subsidiaries of Kadokawa. These Izuku editions compete with each other on the battlefield without gunpowder in light novels, and Kadokawa has always maintained the status of the number one daimyo in the light novel Warring States.

Kadokawa Shoten Co., Ltd. (Kadokawa Shoten PublishingCo., Ltd.), founded in 1945, is one of Japan's leading publishing companies, headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. The range of books in the 出の edition is wide,Covering all aspects of entertainment and academics,Among them, the library of the 出の版 light novel is also quite large。 After a series of market operations and developments, Kadokawa's market share reached 94.4% in the first half of 2011, and it is not too much to call it an industry monopoly. Compared to the sixth day of the year, Oda Nobunaga, Kadokawa's scenery in the light novel Sengoku is not far behind. Let's take a closer look at several of Kadokawa's generals.

Shock library

Dengeki Bunko is currently the library with the highest market share, founded in June 1993, and speaking of the establishment of this library, I also have to mention a little bit about the marriage of the Kadokawa family. In 1992, the younger brother of the former president Haruki Kadokawa, the former vice president Norihiko Kadokawa, resigned due to a brotherly dispute and separated from the Kadokawa Bookstore to form MediaWorks (poaching a group of writers and staff members of the Kadokawa Sneaker Library). Dramatically, however, in 1993, Haruki Kadokawa was arrested for violating the Narcotics Act and the Customs Act, and Norihiko Kadokawa returned to Kadokawa Bookstore and took over as president, and MediaWorks merged into the Kadokawa Group. And the deneki library is the library founded by MediaWorks back then. The source of his works is from the annual call for submissions for the Dengeki Novel Awards.,Because this award has a super high prize money among the newcomer awards held by many Izuku publishing companies.,The largest number of contributors.,So it's called the most difficult light novel newcomer award.。 It is mainly divided into grand prizes, gold rewards, and silver rewards, with 1 million yen (about 81,000 RMB) for the grand prize + secondary reward, 500,000 yen for the main reward + secondary reward, and 300,000 yen for the silver main reward + secondary reward. There is also a special award called the Selection Committee Reward Award. For the above reasons, there is an endless stream of newcomers and good works from Dengeki Bunko. Representative writers include: Minoru Kawakami, who won the gold medal in 1996, and his latest masterpiece is "Horizon on the Borderline", which was broadcast last season. Ryogo Narita, who also won the gold award in 2002, must be familiar with "Baccano!", "Wine of Eternal Life" and "Persona of the Headless Horseman". In 2003, Hiroshi Arikawa, who won the Grand Prize, for his masterpieces "Salt Street" and "Library Wars", and Hitoshi Shibamura, who won the gold award in the same year, for his masterpiece "My Family Has a Fox Fairy". In 2005, Zhikura Frozen Sand's work "Wolf and Spices", which won the silver award, also set off a "wolf girl" craze in the ACG field for a period of time. Mitsuide Sugii, who is also a Silver Award winner, has written works such as "Sonata for the Farewell Piano" and "God's Notebook" both topped the 2011 ranking of this light novel. In 2008, Kawahara won the competition award with his novel "Accelerating the World", and his other work "SwordArtOnline" (translated as "Sword Art Online") was submitted to the Dengeki Library Award in 2002, although the work is very good, but it has no choice but to exceed the word count and can only be serialized on his personal website, but it still sets a record of more than 6.5 million readers! With the award-winning award of "Acceleration World", "SwordArtOnline" has also been released, and the latest news is that the author's two works have both been announced to be animated. In addition, there are writers like Keiichi Tokiyuzawa, Iruma Renji, and Fushimi Tsukasa who did not win awards, but in the end, their works were all published and became extremely popular. "Chino's Journey" sold more than 10 million, and "Radio Wave Girl and Young Man" and "My Sister Can't Be So Cute" also appeared on the stage of TV animation.

Although there are many popular works listed above, there are many more famous writers and famous works in Dengeki Bunko. In the first half of 2011, the library also deservedly ranked first among all libraries with a market share of 34.7%, and it can be said that Kadokawa is the number one fierce general.

MF Library J

MF Bunko J was founded in 2002, and since the MF Bunko J Light Novel Newcomer Award debuted in 2004, the company's evaluation has begun to rise. The prize money is the same as that of Dengeki Bunko, and the grand prize is 1 million yen, the grand prize is 500,000 yen, and the excellent work is 100,000 yen. In the first competition, the author of "My Friends Are Few" was Hirasaka Yomi, and the winning work was his predecessor "Skeleton Lovers". Since then, awards have been won by Tsukashi Nishino and his work "My Kitsune Fairy Girlfriend" in 2005 and all eight volumes of Yuo Miura's "Banzai Series" (the representative of the author after his debut is "Sacred Sword Forger", because Hirasaka Yomi belongs to the same company, so there are a lot of neta episodes about "Sacred Sword Forger" in "My Few Friends"). In 2007, Akamatsu Middle School's "Flying Nord! The author's other work, "Scarlet Bullet's Aria", has not only been TVAIZED, but the original novel is also being serialized. In 2009, the award was won by the now very popular "Confused Butler and Cowardly Me" created by Asanoshi. In addition, MF Bunko J's excellent works also include "Zero Messenger", "Godlike Family", "Kenpupu", "IS", "MM Family", etc.

Due to the excellent works of MF Bunko J, it ranked second in the first half of 2011 with a market share of 21.9%. On October 12, 2011, Kadokawa officially announced the acquisition of MEDIAFACTORY (MF Bunko) for 8 billion yen. MF Bunko will start new operations as a subsidiary of Kadokawa on November 15, 2011.

Fujimi Fantasia Bunko

As mentioned earlier, Fujimi Fantasia Bunko was established in 1988 as a highly qualified light novel library, which was acquired by Kadokawa in 2005. Along with Dengeki Bunko and Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko, they are listed as the three giants of light novels. Every year, Fujimi Shobo also holds a contest called the Fantasia Novel Awards, but the scale is much smaller than the previous two libraries, and the winning works are also distributed by the library. Bunko's active writers and works include: "Show Teasing Magician" in the 90s, "Heaven and Earth Are Useless" and many works by Yoshiki Tanaka, "Full Metal Mania" by He Zhaodongji (serialized in 99), "Stigmata of the Wind" in 2002 (the author died of leukemia in 2009), Reggios in 2006, "Biyang School Student Conference Proceedings" (translated as "The Student Council's Own Opinion") in 2008, "Is This a Zombie" by Shinichi Muraki in 2009, etc. Most of the above works have been adapted into TVA, which is enough to prove that Fujimi Fantasia Bunko has a very deep heritage as a library that has been established for a long time. In the first half of 2011, the library ranked third with a market share of 14.5%.

Kadokawa Sneaker Library

Like Fujimi Fantasia Bunko, Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko was also founded in 1988 with the goal of focusing on shonen light novels, so at that time it published a version of the Mobile Suit Gundam series, Macross Fortress, and Rhodes Island Wars. Later, in order to meet the market demand, the library also began to publish works adapted to the general reader, the most famous of which is Tanigawa Ryu's "Suzumiya Kasuga Series", which not only created the history of light novels, but also created the history of TV animation. Kyohei Iwai's "Song of the Worm", Fushimi Yuki's "R-15", and Gen Kububuchi's "Vampire Demons" are also quite famous works in the library. In addition, Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko has also released many film and anime adaptations, such as "Summer Wars", "CODEGEASS", "Lucky ☆ Star", etc. In the first half of 2011, Kadokawa Sneaker ranked fourth with a market share of 13.5%.

Famitsu Bunko (ファミ通's twitter avatar is so cute)

Famitsu Bunko is a light novel library founded in 1998. After the reorganization in 2000, it was transferred to Kadokawa. On the one hand, Famitsu Bunko publishes novels adapted from large-scale video games and home games, as well as original works with a wide range of genres, and has also established a newcomer award called the "EnterbrainEntame Award Novel Category". Some of his famous works include Takaaki Sue's Staircase of the School, Kenji Inoue's "Dumb Quiz Summons Beasts", and Mitsuki Nomura's "Literary Girl" (two special episodes of Literary Girl tell the story of traveling back to the previous two works). In addition, Ichikawa Kan's "Seven Colors ★ of Stardew", Riri's "Diary of a Crazy Family", the novel version of "Jun Kiss" (originally a PS2 game developed by its parent company Enterbrain) and "Dust Demon King" (originally developed as a galgame by Nitro+) are also very good works. Similarly, in the first half of 2011, Famitsu Bunko had a market share of 9.2%.

The above is the library of all the Kadokawa system, Kadokawa is proud of its high market share, and it has the feeling of being alone and seeking defeat.

Addendum: Now there is another branch in the mainland Kadokawa, which is the Tianwen Kadokawa.

Speaking of non-Kadokawa libraries, the small number of contributors makes excellent works and authors very scarce. The GA library only has "Divine Realm Sonata", "Attack! A few masterpieces such as "Evil God Pretty Girl" have a market share of 2.4%. On the one hand, Shueisha Bunko publishes works that it already has the right to distribute (such as Gintama), and on the other hand, it also publishes original works, among which Kentaro Katayama's "Radio Wave Girl" and "Red" and Asadura's "Bento" are both famous, accounting for 1.6% of the market share (I feel like a bento book is selling well). Speaking of the Shogakukan Bunko, representative works of original works include "Rion Hazuki's Empire" by Meteor and "Memories of a Pilot" and "Love Song for a Pilot" by Inumura Koroku. In addition, like Shueisha, it will also adapt works that have the rights to be distributed, such as "The Whirlwind Butler". It has a market share of 1.5%. The last Yixunsha Library, founded in 2008, is in its infancy, so there are no very famous works, and its market share is only 0.1%.

epilogue

Having said so much, I think everyone must also have a general understanding of the ups and downs of light novels along the way and the current market operation and pattern. Although on the one hand, we see that Kadokawa is wealthy, but on the other hand, we have to worry that one monopoly will not affect the development of the light novel industry, and we will wait and see the future of light novels.