With the increasing number of anime and manga coming out over the past few years that are based on light novels, I feel like my lack of knowledge regarding them is hampering my understanding of anime and manga. Most of the time they aren’t even that difficult and I can get by more or less fine with the Japanese ability I have already, but something tends to draw me more towards the anime and manga sections at Bookoff.

Speaking of, Bookoff has a rack of 50 cent light novels, and I’m occasionally tempted to pick a few up, but then I worry about getting through the entire novel, looking up words I might not know, getting to the end, and then realizing the book wasn’t that good. It’s happened before, and I dislike being in that awkward position of trying to justify my enjoyment of something just because I put so much effort into it. And as for English-translated light novels, I need to find something that’s actually well-translated, as many of the ones I’ve read have been awkward in their localization.

It’s an odd predicament which doesn’t occur as much for me with anime and manga, as I’m eager to take in the bad with the good, and it’s maybe because I can sense my lack of  a firm foundation in the area of light novels and it makes me hesitant. On the other hand, it might be fun to just kind of jump in uninhibited and free, grabbing whatever I can and devouring it, like when I first became an anime fan.

I also spotted some of those Naruto books for kids the other day, which are just prose describing more or less what happens in the manga. I read a few pages and came to a single conclusion: I enjoyed the writing more than I did Twilight.