Are There Any Examples of Manga Adaptations of Light Novels That Reached The Ending of The LN?

[wandere]

When I say "light novel" here, I also mean "web novel", but also I question how many web novels with manga adaptations don't have a light novel version as a step in between the two. It's kind of interesting how the belief that the web novel is the end all be all of the narrative of the manga is still often held despite that. Regardless, I'm not sure if I've ever seen a light novel or web novel adaptation with an actual end outside of...I think Spice and Wolf? If you dug into the past I'm sure there are more examples but this question sprouted more from what has come out in the past 7 or so years. It seems like any adaptation is either 1. An advertisement (cancelled) 2. Ends with a rushed ending (cancelled) 3. Goes on hiatus and never comes back (Essentially cancelled) or in a distant 4th, is still ongoing to this day.
Logistically, it seems like a huge commitment to actually finish a manga adaptation of one of these stories; even a decently fast release schedule may find it hard to adapt book series which are known for expanding out into 100s or 1000s of chapters, and in fact the only example I can see of it sort of working (as in keeping a decent pace at the cost of artist health) is manhua wn/ln adaptations which...I also haven't seen the completion of ever.
So, any examples? I'm mostly expecting older works that are pre the "Isekai Explosion" or whatever you'd call it, but I'm interested.
Edit:
I have been told this is confusing, so to make it more clear, what I'm wondering about is manga which:
1. Are light novel adaptations (is there a such thing as a web novel that is direct to manga?)
2. Are currently finished, as in no more chapters are being made currently
3. They reached (or as an addition, exceeded) the ending of the light novel as opposed to having been axed before reaching it 3a. To clarify 3, this means that light novel adaptations that had an alternate ending but clearly were axed do not count.
3b. To further clarify, the adaptation does not have to align perfectly to the light novel ending, especially when information on the "true ending" of the series is often from a web novel which may have gone through editing before becoming a light novel. The important part is that there is a "proper ending", which means an ending that does not for example pull a "The adventure continues..." with clear implications of there being more story to be told.

 

[Manko-sensei]

You may want to rewrite all that because I still don't know what are you asking for. So first, do you want an original light novel that got a manga adaptation or a manga that got a novel adaptation? And do you want examples of completed ones of any genre and year, as long as they match the ending of the original work and the adaptation?

 

[wandere]

You may want to rewrite all that because I still don't know what are you asking for. So first, do you want an original light novel that got a manga adaptation or a manga that got a novel adaptation? And do you want examples of completed ones of any genre and year, as long as they match the ending of the original work and the adaptation?

An original light novel that got a manga adaptation. Not a manga that got a novel adaptation. I don't care about the genre or year, but I am more interested in more recent ones as in maybe the past 10 years. Lastly, yup matching the ending of the original work or I suppose at least being similar or exceeding it.

 

[Manko-sensei]

Well, since they take some time to get adapted and they milk them until the last yen it's hard for recent ones to have already finished, but there are many that are close to do it. About old ones, I remember from the romcom genre some like Kanokon, Haganai or Oreigaru, all of them with oficial English translation. About popular isekai/reverse isekai series that may interest you, Konosuba franchise has some series finished and others like the main one heading towards the conclusion (whenever that happens), The Devil is a Part-Timer keeps releasing the manga adaptation but I have no idea how close to the end that one is and more or less for many more. But anyways, you can check the status in many sites.

But if you want a short answer, manga adaptations that don't cut big parts of the story need at least twice the number of volumes the novel needed, that makes average sized series last for more than a decade and I don't want to imagine how many years the big light novel series will need to be completed. All of that, of course, if they are still profitable after all that time. Because @BakedBanana wants to read the manga end of all the series from A Certain Magic Index, right?

 

[BakedBanana]

Because @BakedBanana wants to read the manga end of all the series from A Certain Magic Index, right?

lol no. Bro, the Index manga is STILL in Old Testament, meaning they aren't even in New Testament yet. Ain't no way that's ever getting fully adapted when the light novel is now up to volume 13 of Genesis Testament.

Now Ascendance of a Bookworm on other hand.. That's worth reading since they are doing all the parts except 5 so far (and the 1st part is fully adapted)

 

[panzerkampfwagyu]

Bookworm Isekai at least has a pretty good solution by having the adaptation of the books go parallel by book

 

[wandere]

Bookworm Isekai at least has a pretty good solution by having the adaptation of the books go parallel by book

I believe that's the same angle that Observation Log of the Villainess took, although I'm not 100% clear on it; and I think that's a much better approach. At least in my experience reading webnovels, there oftentimes are "jumping off points" where there is a relatively satisfying ending for readers (although there might still be plot points left over) and after which there will be a "soft reset" where they are in a new setting possibly with entirely new or mostly new characters. I'm much more happy with that than it going on and on with no sign of ending any time soon.

 

[undeed]

Spice and Wolf

so not counting the spring log stories?

Bookworm Isekai at least has a pretty good solution by having the adaptation of the books go parallel by book

or mahouka by arcs

So not anime? but manga that reach the end of the novel
Baccano?

1. An advertisement

Another hot take
I actually never saw manga adaptation as a viable medium for promoting novels. The manga may end up promoting the ln, but I really don't see it as the main purpose.
I think the main purpose is actually for the mangaka to promote themselves. Because most of these new, no-name, seemingly out-of-nowhere ln/wn adaptations are also done by first time mangaka. They have nothing to lose, so if they got story to draw, they'll take it.
So I don't know, unless someone who actually know how adaptation are made, is it the authors who pitch their ln/wn to the mangaka, which makes it a promotion for the ln/wn, or is it the mangaka who come to the authors and say "hey, let me draw your story", which makes it a promotion for the mangaka, I'm sticking with the idea that promoting the ln/wn is just the biproduct.

Because unlike anime that works with the limitation of number of episodes, I'm pretty sure mangaka would want their manga to continue to be published. It is their source of income. I imagine they would want it to continue. It is only because of the sales, either because the story or the art became shit, that the manga then get axed. I really don't think it's like "alright, promotion end, stop the manga". Unless some fucked up shit happen like in the Liselotte manga.

Also, believe it or not, not that many people in Japan read manga (at least in public that I can see), but there are a load of them do read novels on the subway, buses, cafes, etc. (tbf, I don't know if they are regular novels or "anime" light novels since the size here are the same. And they usually put them in book covers). So I've always wondered, is it worth promoting it that way?

 

[Manko-sensei]

lol no. Bro, the Index manga is STILL in Old Testament, meaning they aren't even in New Testament yet. Ain't no way that's ever getting fully adapted when the light novel is now up to volume 13 of Genesis Testament.

Now Ascendance of a Bookworm on other hand.. That's worth reading since they are doing all the parts except 5 so far (and the 1st part is fully adapted)

Hey hey, we are talking about manga, not the Bible. So they are still milking the LNs? I don't want to imagine the fans reading the novels to their children, because yes, despite all appearances there's still natality in Japan.

 

[BakedBanana]

So they are still milking the LNs?

Yeah, though they are still good but it's getting harder and harder to keep track of all the factions.

 

[wandere]

Another hot take
I actually never saw manga adaptation as a viable medium for promoting novels. The manga may end up promoting the ln, but I really don't see it as the main purpose.
I think the main purpose is actually for the mangaka to promote themselves. Because most of these new, no-name, seemingly out-of-nowhere ln/wn adaptations are also done by first time mangaka. They have nothing to lose, so if they got story to draw, they'll take it.
So I don't know, unless someone who actually know how adaptation are made, is it the authors who pitch their ln/wn to the mangaka, which makes it a promotion for the ln/wn, or is it the mangaka who come to the authors and say "hey, let me draw your story", which makes it a promotion for the mangaka, I'm sticking with the idea that promoting the ln/wn is just the biproduct.

Because unlike anime that works with the limitation of number of episodes, I'm pretty sure mangaka would want their manga to continue to be published. It is their source of income. I imagine they would want it to continue. It is only because of the sales, either because the story or the art became shit, that the manga then get axed. I really don't think it's like "alright, promotion end, stop the manga". Unless some fucked up shit happen like in the Liselotte manga.

Also, believe it or not, not that many people in Japan read manga (at least in public that I can see), but there are a load of them do read novels on the subway, buses, cafes, etc. (tbf, I don't know if they are regular novels or "anime" light novels since the size here are the same. And they usually put them in book covers). So I've always wondered, is it worth promoting it that way?

So I would take it to mean you live in Japan currently, or have you visited?

At least from what we can see in the States movies are often a gateway to get people, although not everyone, into reading the books they are based on. You know like they'll even have those new editions that say "based on the hit movie". Alongside that, there are at least some people who after reading the manga adaptation will go out and look for the webnovel; heck I have before (although it often is a bit disappointing), and I wonder if those people had the capability to access and read the light novels easily if they might go out and read those because it feels like a similar phenomenon which is of course restricted by the media. I have kind of equated YA novels to Light Novels to some degree because they give me heavily the same energy with some cultural and societal differences (like how in the US we don't really make comics in a a variety of genres like we did decades ago). It's very interesting how Japan seems to be very much a society of people who read, whether that is a conventional novel, manga, or anything else when in the US that is not the case at all.

It's definitely an interesting perspective, because my question then is what does the writer or the people representing the writer stand to gain? And chewing over it, you have a point. Maybe it's less like there are "advertisement" adaptations for the most part and moreso that the ln adaptation is kind of part of the marketing to see if the story has any legs; if it makes a profit that's good, possibly they can even leverage that into a deal to air an anime (or live action if that ever happens), and if it's not going well, they can easily pull the plug. They might even not mind if they break even as long as they build up hype.

 

[undeed]

So I would take it to mean you live in Japan currently,

going in my 6th year here

Maybe it's less like there are "advertisement" adaptations for the most part and moreso that the ln adaptation is kind of part of the marketing to see if the story has any legs; if it makes a profit that's good, possibly they can even leverage that into a deal to air an anime (or live action if that ever happens), and if it's not going well, they can easily pull the plug. They might even not mind if they break even as long as they build up hype.

yeah, that's what I always thought
So, whenever there's a manga adaptation that gets discontinued, and the comments are like "oh this manga was made just to advertise the novel", I'm often like "uh... no? I don't think so."
Like, the manga does serve as advertising, but I don't think it was created solely for that purpose.

 

[wandere]

yeah, that's what I always thought
So, whenever there's a manga adaptation that gets discontinued, and the comments are like "oh this manga was made just to advertise the novel", I'm often like "uh... no? I don't think so."
Like, the manga does serve as advertising, but I don't think it was created solely for that purpose.

Maybe in a way the relationship we have with light novels in the West has changed; they are to some degree more accessible these days with official translations in English and I assume other languages, whereas in the 2000s and early 2010s when a lot of these older completed or "completed" light novels were released we didn't really have access to the manga in large part did we? In my memory for the most part you just had the anime and that was it. I didn't realize Spice and Wolf or the "A Certain Magical Index" series and its spinoffs were based on novels until much later on because 1. I was a child/teen and never thought to look into it and 2. There just was not a push for availability or making these things known.