The wave of anime and manga coming from Japan to America
(now a set of phenomena decades old) has brought with it a concomitant interest in and market for other
aspects of Japanese pop culture. Iron Chef. Gas station sushi. The light novel.
What are light novels? Light novels are books written
to be read simply for the sake of enjoyment. While many of the people publishing light novels in this country also publish manga, the light novel is a primarily written medium rather than a comic. They are often illustrated with
manga-style illustrations, but they are written stories not comics—though the most
popular quickly find themselves adapted into manga and anime. Though the
individual volumes may shorter than “serious” novels, they are often serial
stories running to a dozen or more volumes. They have the same targeted focus
that manga do: “boys,” “girls,” “young men,” etc. Yet there is the same sort of
cross-over readership.
In other words, “light novels” are the modern Japanese
equivalent of traditional “pulp fiction.”
So far as I understand it, then, literature in Japan exists
in two streams. The “serious” (or “literary,” “socially relevant,” “heavy,” “fill-in-your-adjective-here”)
novel and the light novel. You can read your Kawabata and Murakami, and you can
read your Heroic Legend of Arslan and Vampire Hunter D. Each stream of
literature has its own set of expectations, its own awards, and its own
readership.
Should American speculative fiction be heading in a similar
direction? I think it’s perfectly fine for science fiction novels to strive for
“social relevance,” but does every novel to be of that sort? Why can’t The
Handmaid’s Tale exist alongside A Princess of Mars? To call both simply “science
fiction” I think does a disservice to both works.
Perhaps a way to ensure that everyone can play in the
speculative fiction sandbox is to make separate sandboxes. It seems to work for
the Japanese. Is it helpful to start thinking that way in the American context?
