I was watching Anime for a long time already, picked up a manga here and there but I didn’t really enjoy them. It felt like there was so little story and I could finish one in under an hour. So I gave up on Manga.
I watched So I’m a Spider, So What?/ Kumo desu ga, nani ka? when it started airing and it hooked me instantly. Her character. The world. The comedy. Everything. (Except the humans…).
Once it was over, I wanted more. And since everyone kept saying the Light Novel is way better, especially the human side, I bought the first 3 volumes.
It was amazing. I binge read them until I had to wait for the English releases. Right now I’m waiting for vol. 16 to be available again so I can finish this series.
I had been reading manga for a while and then, similar to you, ran into a series in which I could not wait to see what happened next. For me, that series was Eminence in Shadow which was my entry into LN/WN reading. I was surprised at how different the LN was from the manga in tone though, moreso than many other series I have since consumed both forms of media. It is a great example of the different storytelling modalities adapting the same story and ending up with three (LN, manga, anime), interesting for different reasons, pieces of media.
I don’t remember exactly which light novel was my first, but I know it was a fan translation I read after an anime’s end. I was pretty snobby about the quality of the translation and someone suggested I give the official translation a try and from that point I was hooked. Right now I read around 170-200 volumes per year (though I won’t reach those numbers this year - too many great games eating up my leisure time).
I am not sure how I got into light novels. I have been reading manga for a long time so at some point light novels were mixed in.
Spider was one of the first ones I got super excited about. Before the anime was announced I was collecting the manga, and the light novel was on sale so I picked up the first volume. Then the second. And before the week was out I was completely obsessed scrambling to get my hands on all of the available English releases.
I started with Mushoku Tensei. Just as you, watched the anime, loved it, and heard amazing things about the LN. And you already know the rest. Now I’m just waiting for the next volumes to be translated so I can buy them.
My interest started with SAO and started with them. But dropped them when I finished mushoku s anime and went all in.
@EnmaAi22 @lightnovels Was reading comics and looking for something different, found the first Manga translation for AoaB, then found out that there are translated books for it. So, Ascendance of a Bookworm.
Can you give me a sales pitch on ascendance of a Bookworm? I see it recommend or praised a lot but the story doesn’t seem that intriguing to me.
@EnmaAi22 The Main character went to library school before being Isekai’d to a place with magic but few books … As a sickly commoner. It’s fairly slow paced, but the world building is top rate. Some folks cannot imagine being as obsessed with books as she is, but I married a librarian and I read hundreds of books a year.
Like any book, it’s not for everyone.
I also love female led books that aren’t romance-centred. It hits my buttons well.And lete guess, she is trying to make books more commonplace in the world?
I think I’ll give it a try and order the first volume:)
I started reading in high school at some point. I believe it might have been after bakemonogatari aired, i was readding them on bakatranslations back then. I read some of the monogatari translations, i believe they might have had it broken up in parts because i only remember reading kizu. After that i read some others that didnt get my attention until i read the first SAO. Dont remember if i read it before or after the anime aired, it had to be before or right after because i remember defending the story as a whole to the anime haters at the time. The only other memorable novel i read were high school dxd, which i wasnt telling anyone i read lol.
I dont recall reading much after, i delved into vn at some point though. Then some years later when the first season of slime started airing it immediately got me hooked and I started reading before the season ended. I dont think there were even 4 volumes in english at the time so i jumped to the web novel. So after i did some googles for more isekai novels i came across mushoku tensei, again at the time there werent many english volumes so i had to resort to the webnovels again.
After those two i just never stopped, then it went out of hand when the pandemic hit. Ive now read close to 1000 volumes probably. The last couple years i changes things up and have my epubs played through my book app which makes it almost as good as an audio book. Some times better i would say.
Only one I’ve read is by Okina baba
I’m a spider so what.
I’m currently in book 10. Can bash out a “book” in a few hours. It’s great but it’s super expensive. 16 books at $10 a book. Actually 12 on Kindle and 8 on book walker.
Good choice. Was my first too. I adored it. Yea it’s pretty expensive per chapter.
I’m new to the light novels, my first LN was The World’s Finest Assassin’ after watching the anime on Netflix. I think it’s fun to read and I like the most part of it, but I just dropped it because I don’t like its kind of harem. Then I can’t stop, I read Tearmoon Empire, Ascendance of a Bookworm, those two are so good, Sasaki and peeps is also fun to read. Now I’m reading Konosuba on V.15, the next after I finish this story would be Secrets of the Silent Witch.
One thing I noticed after I started reading LN is that I kind of don’t enjoy anime adaptations from LN source anymore 😐.
It’s definitely hard watching an anime adapted from a LN you read.
Classroom of the elite was painful, atleast the first season didn’t watch any further.
So I’m a Spider was painful too, not as much because Kumos side was decently well done.
I forgot exactly how I got into it, I suppose it’s just a natural extension of my interest in Japanese media (and I love reading, comics and novels alike). I don’t know if this is the very first, but it’s one of the very first and the most memorable for me - “The Empty Box and Zeroth Maria” fan translation, many years before it was officially licensed.
