That rule would classify 吾輩は猫である as a light novel 
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So, I used to say: If it has multiple mangalike artwork inside, it’s LN (or children’s lit). But now they have come out with stuff like this
and not even that theory works anymore.
Artwork is gorgeous though. Having a BL mangaka draw those, is a choice. 
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Curious that the book description says it has 読み仮名. I’d not come across that term before.
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I mean, こころ is pretty much BL (until the last part), so it fits.
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Necroing this thread because I am occasionally still very mildly annoyed by this.
I would like to propose that only novels from publishers on Wikipedia’s 主なライトノベル系レーベル list are to be considered “light novels”.
Of what this would notably change (from what I know about):
All ハヤカワ文庫JA books would become “novels”. The ones that come to mind here are: 星界の紋章 | L40 , 星界の戦旗 | L35?? , JKハルは異世界で娼婦になった | L29
The reasoning for 星界の紋章 being widely considered a light novel just seems to be that it got an anime adaptation during a particular point in time - but it’s not marketed as a light novel by the publisher, you can’t buy it in the light novel section of a bookshop, and there’s nothing about the contents that would make it “light-novely” (such as illustrations or writing style). Most of the other stuff they publish is already listed here as a “novel”.
And also, this would change all the ライト文芸 to just be “novel”. From my lists, this would impact 後宮の烏 | L37 , タイムカプセル浪漫紀行 | L34 , and ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 (1) ~栞子さんと奇妙な客人たち~ | L31 .
Maybe ライト文芸 are just glorified light novels, but eh - again, they’re not in the light novel section of the bookshop, and from the ones I read if they didn’t have that style cover, there’d be no particular reason to classify them as one.
For books that have been published both as light novels and as “regular” novels - I guess you’d either go by what it was first published as, or by whatever edition happens to be in Natively’s database. I’d probably lean towards the latter even though it’s pretty arbitrary, and in this case it would change 星へ行く船シリーズ1星へ行く船 | L30 and ひとつ火の粉の雪の中 (新潮文庫 あ 81-1 nex) | L33 to “novel”.
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I’ve read the first and last of these, and they feel reasonable to classify as light novel to me. Notably they have the “long series featuring the same characters in the same kind of situation” setup that to me feels a key component of light novels. I agree they’re a bit closer to the edge of what is always going to be a fuzzy definition, though.
Put another way, I would include ライト文芸 as a kind of ライトノベル.
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I don’t overly care if ライト文芸 are included as light novels - but if so I think they should all be included as light novels rather than some as and some as not. But, I think a “long series featuring the same characters in the same kind of situation” being considered a key component of light novels would disqualify numerous unambiguous light novels as light novels - there are heaps of one-off books and short series, so I don’t think that’s valid.
It also doesn’t apply to タイムカプセル浪漫紀行 | L34 , which is a single volume novel.
I don’t have that many ライト文芸 in my Read list, but 竜愛づる騎士の誓約 上 | L34 I have as a “novel” and is from the same publishing imprint as 後宮の烏, - it’s a two volume 上/下 so doesn’t follow that pattern.
I did a general search for novel, and saw some popular ライト文芸 stuff that is currently classified as “novel”, e.g. また、同じ夢を見ていた | L24 , わたしの幸せな結婚 | L32 , 三日間の幸福 | L29 , 夜行 | L33 , 夜が明けたら、いちばんに君に会いにいく | L26 , あの花が咲く丘で、君とまた出会えたら。 | L28 , 今夜、世界からこの恋が消えても | L30 , いたいのいたいの、とんでゆけ | L33 , 天久鷹央の推理カルテ | L33
Anyway, I don’t mind too much either way, but I think it should be consistent and based on the publishing imprint. I think there’s some validity to the idea that ライト文芸 are just glorified light novels (or, to an extent, light novels marketed to women) - but also with the state of light novel publishing being so terrible at the moment they do stand out a bit from them.
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Well, I haven’t done a detailed analysis, so it’s all just my subjective impressions. But I would guess that a fair number of those short series and one offs were written with the hope that they would become ongoing longer series – they just didn’t get the necessary sales figures to do it.
Overall I’m happy with genres being fuzzy things that are defined by their central characteristics with an outlying cloud that shares similarities – I think that “long series whose story arc wasn’t fully preplanned”, “internal illustrations”, “teen/young adult protagonist” etc are all concepts that sit in there somewhere, even if not everything in the genre has them.
(Is 夜行 a ライト文芸 ? 小学館 seem to have published it under their standard book and bunko imprints, not anything ライト文芸 specific.)
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I think that’s definitely not the case for many of them. For all the narou slop - yeah, sure, but back when light novel publishing was a bit more professional there were heaps of books/series with planned endings. Easy example: イリヤの空、UFOの夏 | L34 - there is no way this didn’t sell well - it has an OVA series, a radio drama, several video games, and is just in-general extremely highly regarded as a light novel, but ends conclusively in four volumes.
Most of the LNs I like are short, focused series or single volume stories, so I’m having trouble relating to the point. Even 後宮の烏 is only 7 volumes, which is nothing remarkable in terms of page count for a fantasy story, and it was clearly fully preplanned.
“Light novel” isn’t a genre though - it’s more like a publishing format or a marketing label. The simple definition of “a light novel is a novel published under a light novel publishing imprint” is fairly unambiguous, so long as we agree on what a light novel publishing imprint is. I don’t think a fuzzy definition is good or useful for a category in a database of books.
You’re right - I was just crtl+fing on the wikipedia page and their ライト文芸 imprint showed up.
From the blurb it sure sounds like it would fit right in with typical ライト文芸 stuff though.
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Honestly I really like the idea of referencing specific publishers in deciding whether or not something is considered a light novel. The natively import process could even potentially auto-check for the user based on the publisher data pulled from Amazon.
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I also think it makes sense to use the imprint to classify things. Knowing if something is a light novel or not does make it easier to find it when going to Bookoff (although, at this stage, I am personally fine since I know more or less which imprint is LN and which is not).
That being said, my other usage of the light novel classification has been to keep track of how many “proper” books I am reading. In that sense, stuff like 後宮の烏 | L37, ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 | L31, or 裏世界ピクニック | L33 definitely do not count (yet the last one is counted by Natively as a regular novel series?). Since that’s not even consistent, I guess I’ll just have to keep track of that myself anyway.
So, yeah, if there’s an easy way to make things consistent on Natively, I would also agree it’s a good idea.
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Bookwalker displays what type of book it is (ライトノベ vs 文芸) and what I use when I’m unsure. I wonder if it’d be easy to pull that information. I imagine that’s just pulled from the publishing imprint, but it might be easier than having to have a list of all the publishers in order to do the lookup.
I was about to say “Amazon does that too”, but upon checking…
They put Honzuki in “Literature & Criticism → Science Fiction, Horror & Fantasy” instead of light novels (which is a category they have).
Soooo we can’t trust Amazon on that front, I guess 
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At the moment, we rely on the user adding a book/series to put it in the ‘correct’ category. We (librarians) occasionally get requests to change a category but basically, unless a user flags something, the category stays in whatever was originally assigned. There is no double-checking with amazon or bookwalker etc. and I am not sure there are any plans for this.
but anyone is welcome to at least put it on the dev team radar by submitting a feature/product request. 
(Edit: personally, if I handle a category change request, I do a bit of research, trying to either find the book on the pubilsher’s website or a wiki entry or bookwalker (et al) and check what it’s categorized as there.)
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Not claiming that it’s a deep masterpiece of literature necessarily, but 後宮の烏 (for instance) isn’t less sophisticated or complex than the average piece of general fiction. I’m not sure what your criteria is, but “light novel” (in the sense of ライトノベル, the Japanese word) vs “proper book” doesn’t make much sense anyway, IMO…
裏世界ピクニック is ハヤカワ文庫JA, so you wouldn’t find it in/next to the light novel section of the bookstore.
Well, I guess I can just go ahead and make the change requests as above, and you/whoever can assess them? Though, I think a consistent definition would be best…
But, say a request to change https://learnnatively.com/book/546b15e178 (後宮の烏) from “light novel” to “novel” came in, what would you decide?
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I would keep it as LN. It’s label is a ライト文芸 label and from my western POV, those fit better with LN than with general novels. 
But, I don’t really mind either way. If the consensus ends up being ライト文芸 should be novel, I would do that as well. 
As far as I have understood the current consensus is:
- if publisher calls it LN, it’s LN
- if label is LN, it’s LN
- if classified as ライト文芸, it’s LN
- if unclear: what does bookwalker or wiki or anilist say?
- if outside source cannot be found: go with whatever the user wants
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Also if unclear: is it on AniList?
Since AniList only has LNs, not regular novels, it’s a decent source. I’m sure it has some inaccuracies and edge cases like anywhere, but it’s pretty good.
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thanks for the tip. I don’t use anilist, so am not familiar with what information is on there. 
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My criteria is “is it on par with something that is published as a light novel”. 後宮の烏 is on par with https://learnnatively.com/series/89cf16f9ce/ (light novel), 後宮妃の管理人 | L33 (actually this one is also ライト文芸, so it doesn’t prove anything), and only slightly better than 花街の用心棒 | L29, so it’s a “for fun” book.
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Wikipedia agrees with you: ライト文芸 - Wikipedia (“ライト文芸 is a Light Novel for adults”).
That sounds like a useful list! Light novel - Wikipedia throws another one in the ring: “Does it have illustrations?” 
Do you think non-LN books cannot be for fun? 
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