i'm not so much of a novel reader, i might do it though if the manga ever stops, because if i knew a manga would stop and i could only figure out how it ends in the novel then i would go there
The more light novels I read, the more I hate the medium. Every single light novel I've ever read sucks at describing things. They give you dialogue and the thoughts in characters heads. At most, you may get the most surface level, thread bare, initial description of a character. Like: "He was an old man, wearing a suit and tie." Afterwards, they'll never mention someone's appearance ever again. No description of character's facial features. No description of their clothing, body language. We sometimes get facial expressions. No descriptions of the character's surroundings.
Light novels try to make up for this awful lack of detail, with 5 or 6 drawings of a character or characters in pivotal scenes. Every light novel author: "Oh, I don't need to offer any sort of descriptions, because the 5 or 6 drawings will cover that." Except they really don't. Often times, not every character will be represented in those drawings. And those 5 or 6 drawings only depict a small portion of the total scenes that occur in the light novel.
What I wish, is that they would write novels, instead of light novels. The light novel format, due to how short they are, forces the authors to cut corners on descriptions, to focus on action. I hate it. A novel should be in depth. The whole point of a novel, is to create a theater of the mind. The author should be painting a picture for you to imagine in your head. Do the Japanese even write fantasy, sci-fi, romance, action-adventure novels? Or is it all just light novels? Or do the full proper novels exist, but we never get access to them in English? The more detailed a book is, the more likely they contain difficult Japanese words that are hard to translate. The longer and more complex the writing is in a novel, the less likely it is to get licensed or fan translated.
Are there awesome Japanese novels out there right now, that we'll never get to read? My fear of missing out intensifies. A few years ago, I tried looking for officially licensed and English translated Japanese novels on Amazon. 100% of them were compilations of short stories. What the fuck? Do the Japanese people hate long novels, or something? It pisses me off. They have such fantastic and creative ideas for stories, but it's mostly surface level. I want depth.
The irony, is that I often find the manga adaptations of light novels to be superior to light novels. Sometimes they'll piss me off, and cut out too much content from the light novel. But often times, the drawings in manga will fill in badly needed images of character's facial expressions, body language, clothing, and surroundings. It just sucks how manga adaptations are constantly behind the light novels in terms of story progression. And there is always the fear of the manga getting axed, and then I'll have to switch over to the inferior light novels.