That Time I Reincarnated as Someone Who Gives a Damn about Light Novels
“What is a light novel?”, asked a bemused forty year old man, showing me his daughter’s texts requesting the next volume of That Time I Reincarnated as a Slime.
“Do You Love Your Mother and Her Two Multi-Direct Attacks,” a middle-aged woman read out loud.
“So I’m a Spider, So What?” a coworker told me.
Light novels are weird. Sometimes extremely dumb and stupidly written. As someone who works in the comics and manga section of a bookstore, I’ve seen it all.
That Time I Was Reincarnated as a Slime. That Time I Reincarnated as a Vampire. That Time I Reincarnated as a Girl But It Was Okay Because I Was With Another Girl. That Time I Reincarnated as the Sub Heroine. That Time I Reincarnated as a Vending Machine.
“I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level.”
“Well then go to the next area, dummy.”
“Didn’t I Say To Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?!”
“It’s not up to me!”
“My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong as I Expected.”
“Aww, cheer up buddy! You’re young, you have your whole life ahead of you. You’ll meet someone soon, for sure.”
“Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?”
“Yes, it is. Don’t do that. That’s the fantasy equivalent of harassing a woman at the gym and asking her to remove her earphones so you can give her a compliment. It’s creepy”
Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two Direct Multi-Attacks?
“I would sure hope so after the nine months of Hell you spent inside her and the 18 following years of stress you put her through, it’s the least you can do.”
No joke, light novels are weird man, and I genuinely do not know why they are like this. Authors in this genre have an obsession with the idea of reincarnating and falling into a fantasy, particular in a virtual fantasy game world. Bee Train’s .Hack//Sign in 2003 followed a group of gamers stuck in an MMORPG, but it wasn’t until the overwhelmingly popular Sword Art Online anime in 2012, an adaptation of Reki Kawahara’s long running light novel series, that the genre began to tell these ridiculous stories.
And still, I don’t know why they’re this popular and I may never, truly know. At the very least, however, I will admit that despite it all, I am a Spider and so *fucking* what!?
