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Japan Specialist Seminars

Specialist Seminars

New modern Japanese popular literature, Light Novel's Details
Theme New modern Japanese popular literature, Light Novel
Presenter Nam, Yoo-min (Liberal Arts Education Center, Korea University
Time November 10th, 2020 (Tue) 12:30 ~ 14:00
Venue Seminar Room #201, SNU GSIS (Bldg. 140-2)
No. 243
Discussion
On November 10, 2020, the 243rd Japanese Expert Invitation Seminar was held as a webinar. About 40 people who used Zoom attended, and Yumin Nam, Ph.D. in Chinese and Japanese Language and Literature, Korea University, gave a presentation under the theme of “New Modern Japanese Popular Literature, Light Novel”. The contents of the announcement are as follows.

'Light novel' generally refers to'entertainment novel for young people, in which cartoon/animated illustrations are included as covers or illustrations'. It is a special and remarkable genre in that it is a text-driven media that is growing in popularity in modern popular culture where images are emphasized and video media is leading the era. This characteristic is due to the fact that Light Novel is a literature that has survived by acquiring audiences in various modern cultures in order to be'sellable', and in light of that point, it is necessary to re-evaluate it as a new mass media.
The origins of Light Novel can be seen as ① girls' novels in the 1980s, ② science fiction novels in the 1980s, fantasy novels, and ③ TRPG replay novels. What these three novels have in common is that the culture that was popular at the time has been transferred to the novel. Active media mixes are common now, but the name Light Novel is also new in that it was a new and unfamiliar trend at the time. Light Novel has absorbed various styles, circulation processes, writers, and materials from each of the novels that existed before, and has established its identity as a genre that creates unique characteristics while accepting the merits of other media.
There are two works that brought electricity to Light Novel. First of all, the boogie pop series published in 1998 is a novel that is not'light' at all in that it has no characteristic characters and is not conscious of readability. However, by changing the background to modern Japan and school, it gave a point to the formation of the reader's consensus. In particular, the first-person perspective and inner description of the reader's peers played an important role in acquiring readers' sympathy.
The Suzumiya Haruhi series, published in 2003, also raised the reality in that it is easy to infer the actual city as the background and in the description. In the story, the communication between the protagonists intersects the city that is repeatedly destroyed in the inner world of the protagonist and the protagonist group, called SOS, searching for a mystery without a specific purpose. As such, the experience of fear, indifference and disconnection of disaster It expresses the reader's empathy and sense of reality by depicting the emptiness in the abundance of modern Japan and the protagonist by intersecting the inner and outer sides of the protagonist.
Light Novel's grammar is to share a message with the writer, but it should be implicit. The problem of reality is reflected, but it should be a'light' method to the last. Light Novel is a literature that reveals reality more clearly by hiding the problems of reality paradoxically, because it is designed to think about how to communicate with readers and maximize them.

After the presentation, questions and answers followed. From the question of whether Light Novel's grammar can be accepted in the existing paragraphs, what are the commonalities and differences, and other influences of the web media environment on Light Novel, questions about the commonalities and differences in distribution structure with Korean webtoons were followed. . The presenter evaluated that Light Novel is not yet widely accepted in the existing paragraphs, but it should be noted that it is gradually expanding its target. In terms of its relationship with web media, Light Novel is being influenced a lot by web novels. Novell pointed out that it is necessary to look at the relationship with web media in that it is print-oriented media. In addition, the presentation was concluded after inquiries about the “Ivasho” theory described in Light Novel and the nihilistic Light Novel were followed.
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