Answerman’s Take on Light Novels
Not really a happy nor fun link, but seeing how I seem to need to comment on the state of light novel publishing in the U.S., this week’s Hey, Answerman has this response from Brian Hanson:
As far as getting “Light Novels” published in the US; Sure! Compiled into a magazine? Dear sweet good lord no. I don’t know if you remembered a little magazine called “Newtype USA” that recently crumbled…. and besides, I don’t really see how there could be such a thing as a “surge” in popularity for Light Novels; they’re basically just romance novels written for men, which is, uh, not a terribly large demographic here in America.
Sometimes, I wish ANN’s staff would do some fact-checking.
- Del Rey’s Faust is, by all intents and purposes, a magazine. It’s essentially a literary magazine that contains short stories and excerpts from light novels. So, doesn’t that fit the criteria of magazine then?
- I’m personally not offended by the phrase “romance novels for men,” but I’m curious which titles have inspired him to group the wide variety of titles under that name.
ANN has been a little better since I first started reading it but there are still columns or statements that they publish that grate on my nerves every once in a while.
March 20th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
The new Answerman has quickly become one of my favorite regular columns on ANN, but this week’s article rubbed me all the wrong ways. What with the bizarre categorization of light novels (Banner of the Stars and Haruhi Suzumiya are romance novel WTF?) and disparaging remarks about Toradora’s reliance on bad genre tropes that simply aren’t there, I’m not sure if Brian’s intentionally, and effectively, trying to combust the ire of anime fans everywhere (per his usual jokes about lacking true ‘flakes’ to snipe at), or if perhaps this week was just an unusually poorly written piece abound in ignorance and bad judgment, but I hope he can learn from his shortcomings and return to form next week.
March 20th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
In general, I’m getting the feeling the man is trying too hard to be “edgy” and controversial and hard-hitting, and unfortunately, yeah, little important details tend to get left out.
March 20th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
To be fair, Faust is technically a mook, or a literary magazine that is more book than magazine even by Japan standards. The US version is even more like a book, shedding the plus-size form factor and the matching print paper. To its credit, I would totally buy a serialized version of Faust if stories of that caliber were to make themselves available on a monthly basis. But even the Japanese Faust come out only once every half a year or something.
Honestly, I think a magazine like Newtype USA can survive, but as it was, NTUSA just wasn’t hitting its target audience. Let alone the other problems hitting ADV at the time. I think we all can agree that the magazine format is one that has little to no margin for error in today’s conditions.
Romance novels for men. LOL. I prefer to see them as alternative to those sci-fi classics pre-teens and teens pick up in their libraries. But I suppose I do read them and some of them have romance elements in them.
Rakshun x Yoko fo lif! [/lol romance novels for men]
March 20th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Also forgot to add: Macias’s Otaku USA might have a bone to pick with this week’s Answerman.
March 20th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Of course there are romance novels for men, they just always couch them as something else, like mystery or adventure or most commonly, erotic fiction.
March 20th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
@kadian: I agree. Maybe Brian’s just channeling Zac this week.
@omo: You and your technicalities! I personally just think of Faust as an anthology, but I think there was a point when even the Del Rey marketing shill was using “magazine,” so hey, that argument worked in my favor.
Like I said above, I have no problem with the term “romance novels for men,” which is all marketing copy to me anyway — I just wish Brian had specified what he had read to make him say that. Did he read Full Metal Panic or Trinity Blood or what?
@M: oh you!
@Kris: I never said that romance novels for guys didn’t exist, but I don’t believe all the Japanese (light) novels that have been licensed in English belong under that classification. I actually think most of the light novels would find a good spot in many YA sections of bookstores and libraries, regardless of being associated with an already existing anime/manga.
March 20th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
If I were to be charitable, I’d suggest that a lot of light novels are like the experience that women stereotypically have with romance novels. They’re frequently trashy and predictable, and I would suggest that perhaps Brian is just thinking of most of the anime these days that are based on light novels with their seemingly endless rehashing of the same tropes, whether romantic or shounen fighting or whatever.
If I were to go into fanboy rage mode, I’d froth about Twelve Kingdoms until the heavens were displeased with me, but I’m a rational mature individual…
(and I dearly love ANN in that they’ve upped their news reporting game considerably in the era of blogging, but they do write a lot of deliberately inflammatory stuff to get page hits (see: Answerman, every review Casey Brienza writes) and their constant trumpeting of ZOMG FANSUBS ARE BAD annoys me when their season previews mysteriously update after fansubs appear…)
March 20th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Well, to Answerman’s credit, the term [romance novels for men] IS funny. And we know it’s just not accurate and to not take it seriously, so no harm no foul.
And yeah, I think he was thinking about Toradora. Which makes it a total troll. But I do it too so… If he was thinking about “anime these days that are based on light novels” though, then he probably just only watch one type of “anime these days that are based on light novels.” There are all kinds of weird stuff out there…
March 21st, 2009 at 7:01 pm
I couldn’t access ANN yesterday but today I looked over this column and thought this guy’s a complete idiot or he’s trolling. I checked the last column to compare and towards the end of the previous column Answerman posted a piece of a letter that someone wrote-in ” ‘This is why you never get good Flakes of the Week. You should try to be more antagonistic and nasty. ‘ ”
For me personally, I don’t like to see someone resort to trolling. It makes it hard to take that person serious in the future.
March 29th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
[...] intercharacter drama that wrapped up like a satisfying trashy romance novel. Toradora is based on light novels, [...]
April 12th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
“ANN has been a little better since I first started reading it but there are still columns or statements that they publish that grate on my nerves every once in a while.”
I know what you mean. There are times where they write would write something really good but then they make dumb comments that just ruins the whole thing and tick me off. I have to fight the temptations to make a fake account and troll the person with horrible comments >.<