What is a light novel (for the purposes of this site)?

Actually, I would probably put all the Harlequin books I have read in the light novel bin (if I had to sort things between light and non-light novels) :thinking: While they don’t have the typical writing style of light novels, in terms of content and “intent”, I think they do belong.

I have no idea, obviously, but I’m adding those to my to-read list :stuck_out_tongue: Thanks for the recommendations.

There’s always going to be borderline cases… but actually the point is moot here, since that’s not a light novel :stuck_out_tongue:

That’s a very good point. I also think that a specific tag makes more sense in terms of implementation.
(That being said, I’m still interested in the “light novel or not” discussion, regardless of it ends up changing a category or a tag).

Edit: forgot to say

That’s absolutely true. However, things seem to have be done that way so far (otherwise I can’t figure out why 記憶屋 | L29 is in the light novel category)

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I think that’s right. While ideally there’d be a sophisticated, leveled, taxonomy for the site, in all honesty I think flat tagging (based on voting) is probably the most realistic and feasible way to go.

But, like @Naphthalene says, discussing what exactly a light novel is has value.

Please don’t take what’s on the site as necessarily a standard haha. Like I said, our only guiding directions come from AniList & user requests… we do our best but when you have to manage 30,000+ books, you can’t think too hard on these things :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m happy to change things from Light Novel → Novel or vice versa if you submit feedback.

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There’s nothing to say every language has to have the same categories, though I’d be curious to know how Brandon feels about that from a technical perspective. I think light novels should continue to be called out in some obvious way. If it’s convenient to switch it from category to tag, I don’t think I’d care much, as long as it’s available in search and filterable on my library page.

Oh I know it’s not a light novel. I just wanted to give you a challenge. :laughing:

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I mean, allowing admin configurable top level book formats for different languages isn’t really all that hard. It really depends on how common we find ourselves in this scenario in other languages and how much benefit we think we could derive from it.

The major boon for putting light novel into a tag is simply because i like the idea of voting dictating it… since it’s a somewhat nebulous concept. Happy to do whatever though, if we find that’s an issue :slight_smile:

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I said it jokingly, but I actually now honestly wonder if it would be possible to use doc2vec on the free preview of books? :thinking:

Edit: someone already trained a model on the top なろう series, too! 小説を読もうの累計ランキングをDoc2Vecで解析する - I want to lead an easy life.

Or that, I guess :joy:

New 多読 challenge just dropped, I see :joy:

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I would 100% put that in the novel category.

Yeah, I don’t think LNs are necessarily inferior to or easier than novels. 本好き is much more complex than some of the novels I have read so far. :woman_shrugging:t2:

Honestly, physically you kinda just know that something is considered/marketed as an LN when you see it. Which is why I find the bookmeter classification as a book format rather than a genre/category so interesting. Makes me wonder where they get their info from… I think they are affiliated with amazon… :thinking:

Personally, I think reducing the main categories to things like novel, short story, non-fiction, poetry, graphic novel, comic, etc. or even just the 4 umbrella categories: drama, fiction, non-fiction, poetry and leaving details to a tagging system would be best. The cover, any tags and the あらすじ will give people the information they need.

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I absolutely love 本好き myself, and I think it’s very well written for a light novel, but it still has the light novel feel for me. Especially when the main character’s internal voice goes “解せぬ” and the like.

Wait, they do that? Where is it shown? I’ve never seen it :hushed:

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Underneath the cover:
image image image

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… that’s neither the case on the mobile version of the site nor on the mobile app :sweat_smile: That explains why I never noticed.

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I see. I do most of my interneting on computer. :sweat_smile: you could force the mobile browser to give you the desktop site, but that’s probably not comfortable to navigate. :poop:

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I don’t get it. ライトノベル is a book format? My books are 文庫, 単行本, ペーパーバック, 単行本(ソフトカバー). I don’ t even see the difference between most of those. Another one I haven’t logged is 新書, and then there are ライトノベル. I’m more confused than ever about what a light novel is supposed to be.

What would drama be in this context? Theatre play?

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more or less. Something written like it’s meant to be played. Those are the four types of how literature has been categorized traditionally… all of these categories have sub-categories (such as comedy or tragedy for drama or memoir, essay, … for non-fiction or mystery, romance, … for fiction), which could be done via tagging. lightnovel would be a subcategory of fiction. :thinking:

See, I read any of those “labels” and I can imagine exactly what the book looks like… the approximate size, the feel in my hand, the thickness… :rofl: Japanese books are very standardized, which makes for a very neat bookcase look. :sweat_smile:

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So is ペーパーバック different from a 文庫? And more importantly, are ライトノベル a different size/cover? (I only read ebooks, I have no idea)

I think my only concern for the voting is that probably 98% of the books on the site are only going to have one or two users voting on their tags; most people will not read most books, so how well those tags represent the books is still pretty wobbly.

That isn’t to say I’m not in favor of the tag system; I think it would be a good step in the right direction.

Do you have any reading on this? I’m not doubting you or anything, I’m just curious!

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that’s the one that throws me a bit, because ペーパーバック and ハードカバーare usually only used for 洋書. 単行本 is usually a hardcover book, unless it says ソフトカバー. ライトノベル are usually the size of a 文庫 but when you see it, you know it’s a lightnovel. It’s hard to explain. They are usually overall thicker and the cover art is very… lightnovel-ish. :sweat_smile:
It’s tricky to explain, but when I am in a bookstore, I have 0 issues identifying them “correctly”.

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no, it’s just what I was taught in school and I have yet to find a book/type of writing that does not fit into any of these categories, so I kept it for me. :slight_smile: In theory, you could be even broader and go drama, poetry and prose (i.e. just identify it by writing style), but I prefer to distinguish fiction and non-fiction as their own categories.

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If the “light novel” category is removed / turned into a tag, what should happen to other categories like “children’s book” or “graded reader”?

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Perhaps? I’m not sure. Those categories at least apply to other languages. You are right though that relegating big taxonomy categories to tags may not be ideal.

Graded reader is an attractive one to keep because it’s my bucket of ‘targeted for language learners’ books that aren’t textbooks (like parallel texts). However, that might be better served by a boolean rather than a category. Graded Reader & Parallel text could be tags.

There’s something attractive with have very clear taxonomy (novel / comic / textbook) and tags for the more nebulous things, but you’re right that these tags would very important … and they’d need to be incorporated into stats, top level filters and whatnot. So it would require some thought if we were to change. You very well might be right that they should stay in a taxonomy :slight_smile:

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I’ve seen one big Anime community make the differentiation by checking whether it’s on mangaupdates.com, or whether it has any Anime/Manga adaptations. I think the latter would be a good way of classifying something as an LN.
As an example, I believe https://learnnatively.com/book/2c1e37ec2e/ should be an LN since it has a Manga adaptation.

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It’s an interesting idea, but then you run into cases of popular books like 十角館の殺人 | L34 having a manga adaption, and the OG book is definitely not a light novel.

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