Despite how awful 2020 was, I feel like we got some pretty good new light novel series, in both the Japanese and English markets. Not everything I read was good but I found plenty of new favourites to share this year. Same rules as last year: I only recommend series that I am up to date with and that had at least one volume published this year. I decided not to include more popular series like Hamefura and Sword Art Online which I do enjoy but have enough popularity within the English-speaking that I don’t think it would be worth it to delve into them here. I read 24 new volumes this year, with 12 of those being the start of a new series so, while I do have some regrets over certain purchases, I did well for myself.

Updates from Last Year

Isekai Goumon Hime/Torture Princess – Ended this year with its 9th volume (10th if you count 7.5). I was really satisfied by how it ended and I stand by everything that I said about the series last year and it’s still my favourite light novel at the moment.

Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road – still ongoing with 2 new volumes released this year and a manga adaptation has started. Volume 3 was really good but volume 4 felt like a drop in quality with it mostly just being about 2 characters fucking around for the entirety of the volume. Still an entertaining series overall. Yen-Press licensed it this year. They do not seem to have an official title yet but they’re using Virgin Road as a working one.

Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu: No new volumes this year but there was a spin-off volume that I’ll talk more about below.

New recommendations can be found below.

Continue reading “Light Novel Recommendations 2020 Edition” →

Just a list of my favorite light novels of 2019. Hopefully, I’ll make this an annual thing. On this list, I have listed the titles of the works, as well as their status, no. of volumes currently released, the author and illustrator of the work, as well as any other notable things such as whether they ranked in Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! (KonoRano) 2020, whether the light novel is available in English or whether it has any adaptations. To get on this list, I must like the light novel and I need to have read the latest release of it. I hope you find this list helpful when looking for light novels to read.

Note that this article is intended to be spoiler-free but people have different ideas of what counts as a spoiler so let me know if you think I have accidentally spoiled something that I shouldn’t have.

Honourable Mentions: Akuyaku Reijou? Iie, Gokuaku Reijou desu wa (Unfortunately, I read this too late to add it to the list but it was a really good start to what should be a sweet romance series and I’m looking forward to the second volume) and Sword Art Online (I see no point recommending something that most people have tried. I do like this series, despite all it’s problems, and Kiss and Fly was great and is a must-read for fans of the series and I’m really enjoying Unital Ring so far).

Continue reading “Light Novel Recommendations 2019 Edition” →