I think the other big thing about LNs (especially when we’re talking about numbers of books we’ve read) is that they are on average easier reads than non LN novels. So it’s a little easier to pile up the numbers 
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I have been reading through the Kirby series. I plan to read all of them. I am currently reading 星のカービィ 夢幻の歯車を探せ! | L21. I think the series is pretty fun, and it feels great to read something without looking up words. Most of the unknown words can be understood from the context (the others I just ignore lol). I am slowly deepening my knowledge of Kirby lore too, which is great as a party trick (I am SO fun at parties 
). There’s nothing quite like knowing that the colored Kirbys in super smash bros are part of the Kirby canon 
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I get stuck in my head over pointless stuff sometimes. I guess I’ll undelete it 
I just read @bungakushoujo review of that book, and can safely say I’ll never read it 
I feel like I’ve come across something with the ライト文芸 descriptor a while back, but I can’t remember what
Hmm I seem to have added 赤毛のアン | L32?? edition as a novel here, while the more clearly 子供向け versions are marked as kids books
I'm skeptical of this assertion
Maybe I have a lot of edge cases on my list but… though looking at site-wide counts
| Level | Novels | LNs |
|---|---|---|
| Total on site (collapsed series) | 4015 | 3207 |
| 40+ | 182 (4.5%) | 6 (0.1%) |
| 34-40 | 608 (15%) | 178 (5.5%) |
| 27-33 | 3120 (77.7%) | 2860 (89%) |
| 20-26 | 180 (4%) | 180 (5.6%) |
| 13-19 | 4 (0%) | 0 (0%) |
If that chart is reflective of level distribution more broadly (which I’m not sure it is), then it seems the bulk would actually be similar in difficulty, with novels having 15% more L34+. So at least on Natively, LNs and novels are on average about the same difficulty. So at least on Natively, reading LNs would only provide a potential count advantage for people inclined to read more L34-40 or L40+ material. So I remain skeptical
To be fair, maybe I should have done that chart with non-collapsed… I wonder how the numbers would come out (I’m on my phone though, and not doing it over)
Personally I think the main reason my own finished counts (non-collapsed) feature 79 LNs vs 3 novels is because most novels have not managed to convince me they’re interesting (crappy cover art, not easy to get a quick idea of contents, etc), and LNs often overlap with content I’m already familiar with.
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That’s a big shift, though 15% of everything is nothing to scoff at.
That being said, for me the difference is also simply interest and mental strain. I can read a lot of LNs in a brain dead state without problems, while more involved writing (typically novels or nonfiction) will require me to think, and I don’t wanna. Especially in the evening, which is my main read time. So I tend to procrastinate on novels a lot case in point, I am watching random YouTube stuff and posting here instead of reading my current book.
I liked it a lot, but it was… something? Yeah.
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Sure, a sizeable minority. But still the overwhelming majority are in the same level range.
In other words there’s a non-linguistic difference - which wouldn’t necessarily reflect in levels. Interesting. Will be interesting to eventually run into
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I’m personally inclined to think we have a sampling bias at play here, but I also don’t disagree with the conclusion, based on my knowledge of books in English.
That said, there’s probably not a mathematical expression, but most language research (and a lot of evidence from the more advanced readers here) says that some number of less difficult books is going to be sufficient to improve your reading for more difficult books. So you should be able to read enough LNs to be able to read literary fiction. It would be more than if you’re reading literary fiction along the way, but it shouldn’t matter in the long run.
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I read the first one in the Kirby series a few months ago. It was a good time. I really felt for Metaknight having to put up with Kirby and King Dedede’s shenanigans.
Which ones have you read so far? Any favorites?
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I think it’s a bit skewed because you’ve included books with temporary ratings and the usual default for an unrated book is L30, so the 27-33 range is bigger than it ought to be (and this matters because it turns out that the majority of books in the system are still on temporary ratings). Here’s the table with temporary ratings filtered out:
| Level | Novels | LNs |
|---|---|---|
| Total on site (collapsed series) | 1245 | 780 |
| 40+ | 74 (5.9%) | 1 (0.1%) |
| 34-40 | 348 (28%) | 111 (14.2%) |
| 27-33 | 742 (59.6%) | 568 (72.8%) |
| 20-26 | 84 (6.75%) | 100 (12.8%) |
| 13-19 | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) |
It’s much more likely that a randomly selected LN is L33 or below (87% chance) than a randomly selected novel (66.4% chance).
(Though personally I read more novels and fewer LNs these days because it’s rare I find an LN that sounds like something I want to read, whereas for novels I’ve accumulated a set of authors I know I like. I have more trouble finding the good stuff in the LN category, I think.)
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Should that read “than a randomly selected novel” maybe?
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Cough, cough, what mistake? distracting gestures
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I completely forgot that filter exists - thanks for the revised data
So novels have a 21% chance of being higher level than LNs. Meaning on average (I guess median, if we’re being technical) they’re still similar difficulty - just by a smaller margin than I previously thought.
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Quick, someone build a graph of the full distribution including standard deviation!
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Yeah, my guess is the bucket sizes here are obscuring things a bit. The LN figures are coincidentally centred on the 27-33 bucket, so I guess the median is about L30. Novel median must be higher, but it can’t be that much higher: maybe L32? And likely a fatter tail at the high end. But I’m definitely not about to manually check the figures for each individual level
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I still think there’s sampling bias involved but the conclusion still aligns with my thoughts on books in English if YA + genre fiction stands in for LN.
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Here you go (excluding temporary ratings):
I think the std look ugly when printed on top of the curves, so, averages:
LNs: 29.91 +/- 3.35
novels: 32.26 +/- 4.66
Pinpoint accuracy. Medians are L30 and L32 respectively. And indeed fat tail in both cases, with a fatter tail for novels. (Respective skew: 0.32 and 0.77)
I also didn’t run any statistical test on the distributions, since they are obviously different.
Edit: just for fun, with manga as well
level: 24.10 +/- 3.51, median 24 (duh), skew 0.25, so also fat tailed.
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Add in children’s books… 
I have a feeling they’re below the manga curve but I’m not sure.
My data loving heart grew two sizes this day
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Wow, thanks for doing that (did you automate it somehow?). Odd coincidence how closely the LN and novel curves track each other on the initial rise.
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Sure!
Manga are kinda crunching everything down, so here’s a normalized version:
It’s interesting that we don’t see anymore that novels and LN grow approximately at the same rate, but novels keep going past that point. Instead, it looks like children books are a flipped version of novels.
Data on the distributions:
| type | average | median | skew |
|---|---|---|---|
| LN | 29.91 +/- 3.35 | 30 | 0.32 |
| novel | 32.26 +/- 4.66 | 32 | 0.77 |
| manga | 24.1 +/- 3.51 | 24 | 0.25 |
| children books | 19.18 +/- 7.36 | 21 | -0.71 |
| short stories | 30.52 +/- 5.16 | 31 | 0.08 |
| graded readers | 15.35 +/- 6.93 | 15 | 0.15 |
| textbook | 23.66 +/- 9.41 | 24 | 0.0 |
| nonfiction | 30.8 +/- 4.84 | 30 | 0.53 |
| other | 27.67 +/- 5.11 | 28 | -0.79 |
Edit: textbook has a skew of 0 because the distribution is messed up. The distribution of short stories is more interesting, though. I guess it does look symmetrical.
Are you the data grinch? Are you here to ruin our data?
Yes. I made a script in python to scrape the data and do the analysis.
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Clearly this is after I’ve returned the dinner data. Although I do demand the honor of carving the roast beast.
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The illustrated greatest hits of 花物語 上 | L38 ! Between the handwriting-esque font and the vocab, it’s not the easiest read (tho certainly much easier than the original). The stories are somewhat simplified, but it captures the mood & aesthetic quite well - also it’s nice to have furigana for the names!!
rough summaries the first 2 stories - 桜草 & ダーリヤ
桜草 - a story of 2 girls who meet at an entrance exam. One accidentally causes the other to fail, so she has to go to the prefectural school, rather than the fancy one. They’re semi-reunited one day, on a field trip to a 桜草 field - never exchanging words, but the successful girl leaves her a handpicked bundle of 桜草 with a note “罪の子より”, and they exchange tearful glances from a distance.
ダーリヤ - the impoverished Michiko graduates elementary school (so 12/13), and becomes an apprentice nurse at a charity hospital. She’s envious of all the kids who can now go to the 女学校 - something she wishes she could do. One day a former, rich classmate of hers is emergency admitted, due to a leg injury. She stays by her side, and acts as her nurse during her entire recovery. Afterwards the girl’s family honors Michiko with some ダーリヤ, and request Michiko to become part of their household, and be Harue’s private nurse. They’ll give her all the upbringing and ability to attend school she so badly longs for. However the next day she meets a young patient who’s distraught over her (overworked) mother not visiting, and care for her until her mother arrives. Michiko realizes her place is at the hospital, and throws the ダーリヤ bundle she brought back into the river.
I’ve read ダーリヤ in the book already. It’s one of the easier ones in there, by far. Even still it was nice to know that I got it right (and remembered bits the adaptation didn’t include). Some stories in the original are like “I look forward to rereading and properly understanding that, in a few years…”
Made some progress on 声優ラジオのウラオモテ #02 夕陽とやすみは諦めきれない? | L28 (audiobook only). It’s ok. I don’t think the narrator (Yumiko’s voice actress) does the best job with character differentiation in this one (to be fair, it’s a large cast), but it’s sufficient, and the narration is otherwise clear and moderately paced. Only 2 chapters in, so it hasn’t picked up yet. But I can understand it with very few lookups
A rather oddly titled 2008 high school yuri. The 姉妹 are two supporting characters, only one of whom has feelings for the MC. The second will clearly be part of Couple B… So it’s a series named for it’s supporting characters, rather than the PoV character. Chika (the MC) is clearly modeled after Yumi from マリア様がみてる | L30 . The drama felt a bit forced at times, but the story is nice. That said the next volumes are more money than I wanna pay. So I might not continue right now.
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