Which title made you read its novel for the first time?

[ReiKurti]

When I first started reading manhwa i was suggested Solo Leveling by a friend of mine and I read all the published chapters in one sitting. As I was interested with the storyline and was having a good time I started researching where these manhwa come from and found out that most of them are created based on these things called light novels. Solo Leveling was the first of now over 1 million novel chapters that I have read.

If you ever read novels, I am curious what was the title that made you read the first one.

 

[solstice258]

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto. In fact, it's the only manga whose novel I've read.
Before that, I got interested in Hyouka's novel too, but never started reading it-

 

[DavidianMillerian]

I'm in Love with the Villainess

 

[UnnamedPlayer]

To aru majutsu no index, the three first novels, because it was said there was content in it that was neither in the anime nor the manga. And the light novels were publised in France and very accesible in big brand bookstores. I've sell them second hand a few months after...

I've planned to read some novels in the future since a few years, but i'm not motivated to do so. And i'll never read novels adapted into mangas i've already read, except for Wandering Witch.

 

[Painasbread]

The one I've truly read from it's adaptation is Mad Detective (2680 chapters), although I've always wanted to read Reverend Insanity or Legendary Moonlight Sculptor after being recommended their novels, and others too, I never bothered at the time.
This one has all it's chapters translated into english, so it was an easy choice.

The manhua was actually good and funny, which is quite rare, but since there's an official english ahead, I couldn't read more than past chapter 59, so I tried the novel.

I also started reading some novels because some group also translates novels on their site, aside from manhua and manga.
My Wife Is More Handsome Than Me is the only one I kept in my reading list (the others are dogshit system tropes), and it's the only novel I'm following.
Since I'm not usually a novel reader I don't know if my recommendation is trustworthy, but it's been very good since chapter one for me.
It's a slice of life in ancient times, with a random peasant who transmigrated from our time with some of his daily life advanced knowledge.
The wife is indeed more handsome than he is

 

[undeed]

I'm not really a Novel reader, I read only the obvious big/popular titles,
but the first Light Novel that I ever read I believe it was Mahouka Koukou

When the anime first aired, for some reason I liked it very much (all my friends thought it was mediocre at best)
At that time, I thought the story was very interesting because they tried to explain what magic is in that scientific/technical sense, and that the MC was OP but clearly flawed.
I liked that.
But then there were some plot holes (I don't remember which ones exactly), it bugged me, so I tried to find the LN,
and that's when I found out, holy shit, there's already like 14 or 15 volumes of it, I'm not gonna read all of it.
(I know they're thinner than like Harry Potter, but the sheer amount of them made me lose interest)
So I borrowed just one volume at that time (I can't even remember which one), tried to read it, got bored of it,
and there's that.

That happened again with several other titles: got curious about the LNs, found out that there were already dozens of volumes to catch up on, then I lost interest, I'll just read the manga or watch the anime, because it's faster

The first LN I read in Japanese, and the first that I actually finished was MobuSeka.
Late 2019, I just moved to Japan, everything was locked down,
I can speak broken Japanese, I can read hiragana/katakana just fine, but I wanted to improve my Kanji reading.
That's when I found the manga here on MangaDex

Reeeally liked the art. I thought the story is quite funny.
And then I found out that it was a LN/WN adaptation and that there were only like 3 volumes at that time.
And I was like: alright, it's still new, few to catch up on, I'm gonna buy it, and use it to improve my Japanese reading,
and 4 years later, I have all 13+3 volumes of it.
First LN I ever collected

 

[ReiKurti]

The one I've truly read from it's adaptation is Mad Detective (2680 chapters), although I've always wanted to read Reverend Insanity or Legendary Moonlight Sculptor after being recommended their novels, and others too, I never bothered at the time.
This one has all it's chapters translated into english, so it was an easy choice.

The manhua was actually good and funny, which is quite rare, but since there's an official english ahead, I couldn't read more than past chapter 59, so I tried the novel.

I also started reading some novels because some group also translates novels on their site, aside from manhua and manga.
My Wife Is More Handsome Than Me is the only one I kept in my reading list (the others are dogshit system tropes), and it's the only novel I'm following.
Since I'm not usually a novel reader I don't know if my recommendation is trustworthy, but it's been very good since chapter one for me.
It's a slice of life in ancient times, with a random peasant who transmigrated from our time with some of his daily life advanced knowledge.
The wife is indeed more handsome than he is

Moonlight Sculptor is one of the first novels I've read and is indeed enjoyable. I remember when I first started it, 400 something chapters seemed endless, fast forward a couple of weeks, I was reading a 3000+ light novel with the same VR game setting .
I've also read Reverend Insanity up to chapter 212, checking in real time from my list, but I suppose that it isn't my thing since I stopped after reading only so much.
I'll definitely give a try to Mad Detective manhua first, and maybe the novel if it's really interesting.
Thanks for sharing, and if you don't mind, I'd love to hear more titles you have in your read list.

 

[ReiKurti]

I'm not really a Novel reader, I read only the obvious big/popular titles,
but the first Light Novel that I ever read I believe it was Mahouka Koukou

When the anime first aired, for some reason I liked it very much (all my friends thought it was mediocre at best)
At that time, I thought the story was very interesting because they tried to explain what magic is in that scientific/technical sense, and that the MC was OP but clearly flawed.
I liked that.
But then there were some plot holes (I don't remember which ones exactly), it bugged me, so I tried to find the LN,
and that's when I found out, holy shit, there's already like 14 or 15 volumes of it, I'm not gonna read all of it.
(I know they're thinner than like Harry Potter, but the sheer amount of them made me lose interest)
So I borrowed just one volume at that time (I can't even remember which one), tried to read it, got bored of it,
and there's that.

That happened again with several other titles: got curious about the LNs, found out that there were already dozens of volumes to catch up on, then I lost interest, I'll just read the manga or watch the anime, because it's faster

The first LN I read in Japanese, and the first that I actually finished was MobuSeka.
Late 2019, I just moved to Japan, everything was locked down,
I can speak broken Japanese, I can read hiragana/katakana just fine, but I wanted to improve my Kanji reading.
That's when I found the manga here on MangaDex

Reeeally liked the art. I thought the story is quite funny.
And then I found out that it was a LN/WN adaptation and that there were only like 3 volumes at that time.
And I was like: alright, it's still new, few to catch up on, I'm gonna buy it, and use it to improve my Japanese reading,
and 4 years later, I have all 13+3 volumes of it.
First LN I ever collected

That's an interesting journey. Personally, I only read the novel of only one anime and that was That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime because I was really interested in the continuation of the story.
Over the years I have understood that I watch anime specifically for a good animation (like Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer, peak animation) and the story is just a bonus, I read novels for a good story, and manga/manhwa for something between story and visualisation.
Thanks for sharing

 

[undeed]

That's an interesting journey. Personally, I only read the novel of only one anime and that was That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime because I was really interested in the continuation of the story.
Over the years I have understood that I watch anime specifically for a good animation (like Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer, peak animation) and the story is just a bonus, I read novels for a good story, and manga/manhwa for something between story and visualisation.
Thanks for sharing

haha yeah,
I remembered now, it was because of the movie,
which was set a few years after the anime, and there are characters who apparently already know each other.
And I was like who the heck is this blond chick? why the story suddenly like this?
They were introduced in season 2, which aired couple years after the movie, and at that time I didn't know if there would be a season 2,
so at that time I was interested in reading the LN to find out.

 

[Manko-sensei]

For LN just Oreigaru and just because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to see the end animated, besides reading all the omitted content. Without that excuse I don't think I ever dared to read them as a whole, as for the others I tried it was like reading the ramblings of a teenager written like a script. The only novels I may read one day are the ones of Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (Legend of the Galactic Heroes), but my interest is from non-otaku ones (either classics or nowadays novels that can be called literature).

 

[Cubicle255]

Everyone else seems to talking about LNs so I'll talk firstly about my experience with WNs.

My first WN would be Battle Through The Heavens, fulfilling my urge to know what happens next after reading some bits of the manhwa. I was caught by xianxia rot upon my first endeavour into this space, yes. At the time it hadn't fully translated yet so with my 6 year of Chinese compulsory education under my belt, I went ahead and read the raws. Was plenty fun, being my first xianxia. Always had decent exposure to Daoism so it wasn't all too confusing, except the cultivation parts of course. Couldn't make heads or tails what those abomination of technique names were with my shitty Chinese. As you'd expect, the WNs I then read were xianxias as well. But I've always been more of a physical book guy so I was getting through Condor Hero by the side while reading these shoddy xianxias. I believe I read the author's other works after that. Wu Dong Qian Kun, a spin off, and The Great Ruler. I'll admit, they were fun to read as bad as they actually are. I was reading this mostly on wuxiaworld, naturally then reading other works they translated such as all the douluodalu novels, er gen's works, and I also got baited by Mad Snail with that demon novel. I could name more xianxia slop I went through but that's unnecessary; honorable mentions to Emperor's Domination though, repetitive but fun nonetheless. Also, Reverend Insanity reads to me more like literature than a webnovel. Unfortunately not what I wanted to read at the time.

Afterwards having interacted with the WN reading community, I forayed into the JP and KR side of things under recommendations. I've read a lot, but I can't seem to remember any. For JP my favourite is the spider WN which has been adapted into LN and manga and anime (obligatory I read it before it was popular), got shafted by the author then using the WN to promote his LN but I still really enjoyed it. For KR I've gone through basically all the popular settings, academy, hunter, dungeon, medieval. At the end of it all, the one that comes to mind as I write is not the Second Coming of Gluttony(pure hype), but Ending Maker. It's got a manhwa adaptation now so you can check it out, I didn't really like the style. But that's only if I'm talking about a good novel. In reality my favourite KR WN is The Novel's Extra, it lost its steam second half of the novel but I still re-read it to this day.

Now, I wanted to make a third paragraph about LNs but this is getting too long. I bought all of the monogatari series, don't regret it despite draining my wallet. And oregairu is great as well, followed the translations all the way to shin(and regretted reading shin). Shin doesn't exist, I'm sure it's a fantasy written by some guy only posing to be Wataru Watari

Edit 1: disambiguated some things

 

[TestAddress]

Shangri-La frontier, unfortunately.

 

[Plophop]

First LN I ever read was Welcome to the N.H.K., which is funny because its anime adaptation was also the first anime I had ever watched in its entirety. Alongside reading the manga, it drove me to compare and contrast the three and I came away from it concluding that the anime was one of the better examples of an adaptation, keeping the spirit and tone of the novel while keeping some of the additions from the manga while not coming across as bloated.

 

[hsthompson]

Full Metal Panic, after watching FMP. The Second Raid.
Unfortunately I don't see the anime continuing after Invisible Victory, but I can always read the LN again.

 

[Robinisback]

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, honestly, the manwha was so damn good that I couldn't wait every week anymore, so I just ended up reading the webnovel. I didn't know that it was somehow even better than the manwha, I ended up reading 600 something chapters in 6 days.

 

[OisE]

Shadow queen

 

[Akkatie]

First it was Mushoku Tensei last year (really liked the anime).
This year it was Gimai Seikatsu (also cuz of the anime), then Adachi to Shimamura (cuz of the manga).
Right now I'm considering Bloom into You (this is is just for the extra enjoyment).