Every yuri novel cover would like a word with you 
(tho you can usually tell, bc they’ll usually be doing something couple-y)
There are occasional exceptions tho:
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When should we start the next book?
- June 30
- July 7
- July 14
- July 21
0
voters
Poll closes on June 24
Somehow my top pick for both this and the regular LN club are in 3rd place rn 
(I look forward to confusing people if/when the position switches 
Edit: it changed already)
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Since getting physical copies often takes a while, I think June 30th and probably July 7 wouldn’t work because it would exclude those participants who want to read physical. (I don’t know if July 14 is far enough either, I only read digitally. I hear that delivery can take a while.)
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Right, that’s the main reason I made a poll. But if people who are likely going to read physical want to chime in w/ specifics about how long they need, that would be great!
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In this case I just think that options that might exclude a good amount of readers (our last book had 25% who selected “physical”) shouldn’t even be an option in a poll. I’m also eager to start the next book ASAP, but not if it means that we’ll have less people joining.
For those voting: Please vote for July 21 or at least July 14 to allow more members who couldn’t otherwise to join the club. It’ll also be for your benefit, since clubs are more fun with more people!
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I don’t see the contradiction. All yuri novels I know are written by men for men (the same way yaoi is typically written by women for women).
Edit: case in point, I just checked and ステラ・ステップ is marketed as 男性向けラノベ.
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Interesting… that’s definitely not the case for yuri manga (typically by women for women). I checked others on the site, and least on Bookwalker, you’re right they are 男性向け as well. Tho information about the author’s gender isn’t always available, so that’s a bit harder to determine.
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Looking over the thread, the only people who commented about shipping time, when I asked about start date last time said: “it’s now around 8-10 weeks for delivery so I’ll only vote for books I have or are on the way.” and “I’ve mostly been using CDJapan lately and delivery generally seems to be within 2 weeks after ordering unless something’s on backorder, but if it gets here late I shouldn’t have too much trouble catching up”
July 7 is 13 days after the poll closes, so that’s a bit borderline (and certainly the 30th is out). July 14th is 20 days after poll close. So unless someone comments that they do in fact need more than 3 weeks shipping time, that doesn’t seem to be limiting anyone. If it does bar someone, then I don’t mind making it the 21st, regardless of poll results.
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I have some guests coming in the end of July so I imagine my reading time is gonna tank around then. But I can catch up and my votes for earlier are fine to not count if it comes close.
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I’m going to post something I wrote somewhere else on the internet about this:
The readership is diverse and includes both men and women. See Yuri is for Everyone: An analysis of yuri demographics and readership for some history and demographics. See Global Yuri Fandom Survey Results for a recent international survey. Though the various statistics cited in the first resource suggest male and female readership to be close, while the latter resource has about 1/2 women, 1/4 men and 1/4 other. Yuri manga gets published both in male and female demographic magazines.
It’s also my subjective impression that Yuri manga are by both for both.
My subjective impression is that LNs have a strong tendency to be for men. Technically I know there are LNs for female audience, but I suspect most novels for that audience are not marketed as light novels.
I actually think this might be a reason why Yuri LNs seem less appealing to me. I’m a guy, but I quite like girly seinen. The type written by women that might be mistaken as shoujo, like であいもん 1 | L25??, スキップとローファー 1 | L23, おとなりに銀河 1 | L26.
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I just saw one 男性向け LN with a manga adaptation in the shojo category, so that might be the case. Japanese marketing will forever remain a mystery to me.
I was referring specifically LNs, I know nothing about the manga market.
Huh, all the 女性向け light novels I know are, well, literally light novels, though? It’s a whole section on Booklive/Bookwalker.
Last time I checked at BOOK OFF, they were also separated from the 男性向け ones. Eyeballing it, it looked like the 男性向け was outnumbering it 3~5 to 1, but still.
I do agree that there is, on top of that, a lot of “light literature” (ライト文芸), which is just glorified LN, that feels like 女性向け LNs (but with better writing). My experience may be biased, though.
there’s also TL, which is basically err spicy LNs for women, and that has a lot of available content. It’s technically not marketed as LN either though.
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Yeah, tbh I try not to take the labels too seriously… like I’ve enjoyed stuff that’s from all these categories, and the series have fans of any gender. There is some stuff that’s clearly in a particular category, but otoh it’s not like they’re genre tags either.
Not sure what to make of this, but:
- ライトノベル（ラノベ）、女性向けの電子書籍無料試し読みならBOOK☆WALKER it’s interesting, most of these would absolutely be in the 少女 category, if they were manga
- ライトノベル（ラノベ）、女性向け、百合の電子書籍無料試し読みならBOOK☆WALKER there’s all of 14 results, and 10 of them also have a 男性向け tag
- 文芸・小説、女性向け、百合の電子書籍無料試し読みならBOOK☆WALKER - very few results
Tho then you have stuff like 裏世界ピクニック which doesn’t even have a yuri tag
Any examples/recs?
Similarly, most of the content there seems to be 少女っぽい and combining it with 百合 yields really few results
Fwiw it seems like you’ve also had some bad luck of the draw… like I read your review of 安達としまむら and that doesn’t sound anything like any yuri LN I’ve tried (and also just sounds painful… idk how you got through 9 vols of it!)
TIL スキップとローファ isn’t shoujo lol… the other two look interesting
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Oh, I quite liked individual chapters. I like the introspective style. It’s just when you put them together that the lack of development and plot becomes a problem. Sometimes there even is some kind of semblence of a plot that the author apparently just forgets about or ignores because he doesn’t know what to do with it. And I really became negative about the series in hindsight while waiting for the next volume.
My awareness is very biased by what gets discussed in english on specific platforms and by what has an anime adaptation. On the first page of those, I only recognice Orange (which is originally a manga), my next life as a vilainess (which feels very generally-audiency to me) and sugar apple fairy tale. That’s like one I would have been aware of as a josei muke LN.
Other possibly joseimuke novel to anime adaptations I know of are わたしの幸せな結婚 which is non-light bungei. But on Bookwalker they claim the manga adaptation is dansei-muke (in addition to josei, of course). Very surprised about that, anime felt very female targeted to me, to the point that I dropped it. There is also 薬屋のひとりごと which I’m very surprised to see is a LN (at LN 38 very much not 初心者). And according to bookwalker, only the manga adaptation is for women.
The conclusion is of course that labels are very random.
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That article starts by talking about Yoshiya Nobuko, who coincidentally also turned up in the essay in 日本語で読むということ | L40 I was reading last night. (It was a suggestion to read the biography of her written by 田辺聖子, which maybe, except it also says it is 二千三百枚の大作, and I’m definitely not that much of a fan of reading biographies…)
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Reading your review it sounds like the series suffers badly from the classic LN problem that the author doesn’t want to put in any real plot or relationship development because they want to keep writing more volumes with the characters until the sales figures decline. (Which isn’t to say that all LNs suffer from that, but it seems to me to be a hazard of the genre that the better authors avoid and the worse ones don’t…)
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I didn’t check all of them, but those with both tags were all self published.
I don’t think tags are applied very consistently. On booklive, things usually not have them even though they do exist. It’s probably the same thing.
Plus, my personal opinion is that books with lesbian relationships aren’t necessarily Yuri (but that’s not relevant here)
At the top of my head, https://learnnatively.com/book/fb6de74ccc/ 紅霞後宮物語 | L34 後宮の烏 | L36 後宮妃の管理人 ~寵臣夫婦は試される~ | L33
(A bias, you say? I don’t see what you mean )
Just don’t read them in public 
That’s my poster child example of light bungei It is published by 富士見L文庫 (hint: the L stands for Light)
The story feels gender neutral to me, but I guess that’s just my own bias. (I haven’t watched the anime, so it could also be due to the way they chose to adapt it)
I don’t know what you mean by beginner, but yes, it is a light novel. There are two manga adaptations, though , from different publishers. The split is really easy to understand too, since the plot is literally the same: the one for men is more revealing in terms of clothes/scenes and women have larger breasts, while the one for women has a cutter art style and spends more time on the interactions between the main character and Jinshi (based on my own observations; I read both, but not back to back). I found it funny that only the one for women got translated in my native language.
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Interestingly 3/4 of those are LNs on Natively
I already have that problem with various series that aren’t under that category . Interestingly, I can only find it through Bookwalker’s emails. When I look on just the site itself, it’s not listed. Kinda surprising, cuz Bookwalker lists all sorts of smut very openly.
Considering we’re in the Beginner LN thread, let’s say L20-29 for now… But even besides that, it’s L38 out of 43 (lowest LNs are L20)
I feel like the 男性向け one was dropped at some point? Maybe I’m mixing it up with something else. I think I’ve generally seen people recommend the 女性向け one. (I forgot where were 2 series till now)
I can see that being true, in some cases. In any case, I’ve frequently seen it mentioned in yuri forums, and you will find it on 百合ナビ with a 百合公認 mark.
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2 or 3 of those were added by me, and I voluntarily put them down as light novels if it looks like a light novel, quacks like a light novel, it might as well be a light novel.
Aaaah, in the sense of the thread. I was thrown for a loop by the fact that @bbo was surprised to see a level 38 light novel (there’s no particular limit). But yes, it is absolutely not beginner friendly.
Latest volume came out 3 months ago, and it’s been selling well, considering my local bookstore displays the series prominently…
Oh, sure, no question that 裏世界ピクニック is yuri, it was a more general remark.
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