A History of Light Novels: The 1970s

The following is an unofficial English translation of a Japanese article about the history of light novels by a group called the Light Novel Research Institute. It is presented here for educational and research purposes only. The original Japanese text can be found here. This is an edited machine translation, so some titles or names may be incorrect.

Summary of the 1970s

Japan was in the midst of a period of high economic growth, when industrialization was advancing and there was a dream that science and technology would lead us to a wonderful future. Against this background, science fiction and robot animations such as “Space Battleship Yamato” and “Mobile Suit Gundam” were created and became popular.

As symbolized by the word “post-war,” the subculture of this era strongly reflects the memories of World War II, and “Space Battleship Yamato” is said to be the story of Japan’s victory in World War II. The Principality of Zeon in “Mobile Suit Gundam” is modeled after Nazi Germany.

Early novels started out as science fiction novels or novelizations of science fiction anime, using paperback books as a medium that could be picked up by boys and girls.

In addition, fantasy novels imported from overseas such as “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Wizard of Earthsea” became hits, leading to the later fantasy boom.

Table of Contents:

1970

First publication of the label Hayakawa Shobo launched Hayakawa SF Bunko (now Hayakawa Bunko SF) in August 1970.

  • Bunko (文庫) means “Library” or “Book Collection”, so the name of this company means “Hayakawa Science Fiction (Book) Collection” in English.
  • It mainly translated and published SF novels from overseas.
  • Since then, several sub-labels have been launched under the name “Hayakawa Bunko XX” (with some exceptions). As a unified name, it is called Hayakawa Bunko.
  • Hayakawa Bunko is primarily a label for science fiction and mystery novels, but it also handles essays, manga, and romance for women.
  • It will also publish some works classified as light novels.

1971

Representative works

Super Revolutionary Jr. High School Group Book Cover

Kazumasa Hirai’s “Super Revolutionary Junior High School Group” was published by Sun Young (Asahi Sonorama).

In this slapstick comedy, six junior high school boys are kidnapped by aliens, given super powers, and ordered to use them for the sake of world peace. At the same time, Go Nagai was serializing the popular manga “Harenchi Gakuen” [Shameless School] in Shonen Jump, which was considered a problem by the PTA [of the time for its nudity and scandalous behaving students].

Based on the above, Nozomu Omori’s book, “Light Novel Mekutekiri!” which was published in 2004, refers to this work as the first light novel.

Wolf Guy Book Covers

Kazumasa Hirai’s “Wolf Guy” series, “Wolf’s Crest,” is published by Hayakawa SF Library.

The story features Akira Inugami, a werewolf junior high school student who displays immortal powers when the full moon approaches. His power is targeted by the intelligence agencies of various countries to create enhanced humans, and the story is very much like a shonen manga.

The original manga was also written by Kazumasa Hirai, and was serialized in the manga magazine “Weekly Bokura Magazine” (Kodansha) from issue #43 in 1970 to issue #23 in 1971. It can be considered the first manga novelization.

Kazumasa Hirai is the original author of the manga “8-Man” (serialized in Weekly Shonen Magazine since May 1963), and he’s also in charge of the script for the TV anime version. This makes him the first writer who was able to write a novel with the feel of a manga or anime, and can be considered the origin of light novel writers.

1972: The Advent of the Fantasy Novel

Representative works

Lord of the Rings Japanese Edition

The Lord of the Rings, a high fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, was translated by Seiji Seta and published in Japanese by Hyoronsha between 1972 and 1975. Six volumes. (Original language edition 1954)

The Lord of the Rings is considered to be the originator of otherworldly fantasy novels, and had a tremendous influence on later works. It sparked the fantasy boom.

The story is said to be the result of an exploration of linguistics, religion, fairy tales, Norse mythology, and Celtic mythology.

Trends in the animation industry

Mazinger Z, Vol.1

On December 3, “Mazinger Z,” the original super robot anime in which the main character gets in and controls the robot, was broadcast.

It had a great influence on subsequent works and triggered a robot animation boom.

Based on Go Nagai’s manga that was serialized in the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from October of the same year, Mazinger Z became a media mix success in collaboration with toy manufacturers.

There is an interpretation that the robot anime is a metaphor for the mainland battle that failed in World War II, because the main character’s organization claims to protect the earth, but the members of the organization are exclusively Japanese, and the enemy attacks only the city where the main character is located. Critic Hiroki Azuma sees this as a reconstruction of Japan’s identity in response to the cultural invasion of the United States.

The Birth of “Moe”

Triton of the Sea Vol.1

In April, “Triton of the Sea,” an anime based on Osamu Tezuka’s manga, was aired.

Female fans of the anime voluntarily formed a fan club called “TRITON”, which published a newsletter and held regular meetings. This is the first time in history that anime fans have formed a fan club. The main character, a beautiful boy named Triton, became an idol for the female fans. Some female fans even went so far as to chase the voice actor who played Triton.

At this moment, the phenomenon of “moe” was born, where people fell in love with the characters in anime, just like celebrities and idols, and became enthusiastic about their words and actions.

Moe was born as women fell in love with the “beautiful boys” and “beautiful girls” of manga and anime, and spread to men with the romantic comedy boom of the 1980s.

The first use of idol photos in manga magazines

Shonen Sunday Magazine with Saori Minami

The manga magazine “Shonen Sunday Magazine” used a photo of the idol Saori Minami on its cover.

This led to an increase in the number of copies sold, and manga magazines began to use pictures of female idols on their covers, which had nothing to do with the content of the magazine, and eventually it became standard to have a swimsuit gal on the cover.

The fact that sales were largely determined not by the quality of the manga, but by whether or not the cover was a girl in a swimsuit, was a huge shock to manga editors.

The covers of light novels for boys, with their large anime drawings of girls, were a precursor of this trend. The process of changing from mere mug shots to swimsuits coincided with the drastic increase in the level of moe on the covers of novels since the early 2000s.

1973 The Birth of Paperback Novels for Junior High and High School Students

First publication of a label

The first edition of Akimoto Bunko, an entertainment novel for junior high and high school students, is published by Akimoto Shobo. (~1986)

At the time, there was a boom in paperback books, and paperbacks, which were cheaper than hardcovers, were gaining popularity. Against this backdrop, inexpensive paperbacks were chosen as the medium for novels for junior high and high school students, which they could buy with their pocket money.

The Akimoto Junior series, published from around 1955, was the mother of these paperbacks, which were mainly novels for girls that dealt with humor and youth.

Trends in the manga industry

Osamu Tezuka’s manga “Black Jack” was serialized in “Weekly Shonen Champion” (~1978).

Tezuka grew up in Takarazuka City, where the Takarazuka Revue is located, and his mother was a big Takarazuka fan, so he was taken to Takarazuka plays many times from an early age and became a fan himself. This led him to think of characters as actors, and he invented the “Star System,” in which characters from past works appear in other works.

Black Jack is the culmination of the Star System, with guest characters such as Atom from Astro Boy, Sapphire from Princess Knight, and Melmo from Fushigi na Melmo. In the secondary works represented by comics, the characters from the original works are depicted in a different worldview and in a different story, but it was Osamu Tezuka who established the independence of these characters from the story and their independence.

Light novels, also known as character novels, are created so that the characters leave a lasting impression rather than the story, and this origin can be considered to be Tezuka’s star system.

1974 Birth of the TRPG

Trends in the game industry

D&D Game Book Covers. (l>r) Monster Manual, Dungeon Masters Book, Players Book

TRPG (Table Top RPG) was born.

TRPG is an “interactive” role-playing game (RPG) played with paper, pencils, dice, etc., under the moderatorship of a GM (Game Master) who acts as a judge, with players talking to each other and following the rules.

The first RPG was “Dungeons and Dragons” (abbreviated as D&D) created by Gary Gygax in the US. It was inspired by “The Lord of the Rings”, where a party of warriors and wizards explore a labyrinth where demons lurk to obtain treasures.

As a result, the image of RPGs as medieval European-style fantasy took root.

The Japanese version of “Dungeons and Dragons” was released in 1985.

1975 Birth of Comiket

First publication of a label

Asahi Sonorama launched “Sonorama Bunko” (- end of September 2007).

Yamato Light Novel Book Cover
  • In the beginning, many of the works were SF.
  • The memorable first volume to be released was “Space Battleship Yamato” (broadcasted as a TV anime the previous year), published on November 10. It was the first novelization of an anime.
  • Space Battleship Yamato is the culmination of Japanese identity, and the Comet Empire in the second film version of the anime is based on the negative aspects of America, and Yamato launches a kamikaze suicide attack on the Comet Empire’s super battleship at the end.
  • Sonorama Bunko has since produced novelizations of anime works such as “Ideon” (broadcast in May 1980), “Space Warrior Baldios” (broadcast in June 1980), and “Science Ninja Team Gatchaman” (OVA novelization released in 1994). At the time, the novel version of anime was Sonorama Bunko.

Trends in the Doujin Industry

On December 21, the first Comic Market (Comiket) was held in Toranomon, Tokyo, with 32 participating circles and about 700 participants. Otaku culture begins to sprout.

The birth of cosplay culture

Cosplay, the practice of dressing up as manga and anime characters at science fiction conventions and coterie magazine sales, begins to become more common. The “masquerade,” a skit where people dress up as characters from anime and manga and re-enact scenes from the original works, was introduced to Japan at an American science fiction convention, and became widespread.

Although cosplay is part of otaku culture, the majority of cosplayers are women. The popularity of cosplay was greatly increased by the hit manga “Urusei Yatsura” (1978) and the anime “Mobile Suit Gundam” (1979).

However, cosplay can easily become a source of trouble, as the bikini-clad heroine of “Urusei Yatsura”, Lum, became the subject of complaints from neighbors, and handmade swords caused trouble, and the history of manners and rules to protect cosplay culture continues.

Trends in the Anime Industry

Yusha Raideen

On April 4, the robot anime “Yuusha Raideen” directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Tadao Nagahama was broadcast.

In this work, which was created to “surpass Mazinger Z,” the original Shakin, a beautiful villain, made his appearance. The evil prince with beautiful eyes attracted a large number of female fans, and a “Raideen Fan Club Mutron” was created, where participation was restricted to female junior and senior high school students and boys were not allowed, and the number of members exceeded 1,000 at its peak.

1976 Birth of a Label for Girls

Launch of a label

In May 1976, Shueisha launched “Cobalt Bunko”, a label for girls.

  • It began as a paperback edition of works published in “Shosetsu Junior,” a magazine for young readers.
  • Since then, it has become the largest light novel label for girls, boasting unrivaled popularity.
  • Cobalt Bunko is more of a general literature label, and there are many authors who debuted with Cobalt and moved on to general literature, such as Megumi Tadakawa, Fumio Yamamoto, Shinobu Suga, and Yoko Shimamura.
  • On the other hand, labels for boys have a higher affinity with manga, anime, and games than with general literature.

Representative works

The Japanese translation of “The Wizard of Earthsea” by Ursula K. Le Guin, translated by Masako Shimizu, was published by Iwanami Shoten. (Original language version published in 1968)

The boom in otherworldly fantasy novels gradually begins.

1977 The Birth of Manga-Animation Realism

Representative works

Crusher Joe Vol. 1 Cover

“Crusher Joe”, a science fiction novel by Haruka Takachiho, was published by Sonorama Bunko in November.

The illustrations were done by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, an animator who was later involved in the production of “Mobile Suit Gundam,” and it was the first time that an anime-like illustration was used for the cover. It is said that Haruka Takachiho, the author, saw the robot animation “Yuusha Raiden” created by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, and directly asked him to create the illustrations.

The story was later adapted into a manga (1979) and an anime (1983), creating a media mix. As a result, it became a representative work of Japanese space opera in the early 1980s.

The protagonist, Joe, is a young man of 19 years old, but he is a class-A crusher and a team leader, a type of character that had never been seen in SF novels that emphasized reality (naturalistic realism). The fact that the protagonist was a teenage boy, the same age as the readers, was revolutionary.

The originator of the light novel writing style

Motoko Arai, a second-year high school student, made her debut as a science fiction writer by winning an honorable mention in the first Newcomer’s Award for Strange and Wonderful Science Fiction with “…… in Me.” She used a broken style of writing that actively incorporated the spoken language of her time, and was called the “new colloquial style. In an interview with the Mainichi Newspapers shortly after her debut, she said, “I wanted to write a print version of the manga ‘Lupin the Third.’”

Author Eishi Otsuka describes Motoko Arai’s writing style as the first to incorporate the concept of “manga/anime realism. Until then, novels were meant to sketch reality, but Motoko Arai’s writing style was the first to sketch the world of manga and anime.

Critic Hiroki Azuma states that “manga/anime realism” developed because postmodern otaku live in a database of characters, and light novel writers are better able to communicate with readers if they draw their characters based on this premise. It had been about 30 years since the debut of Tezuka Osamu, the god of manga, and it can be said that the generation that grew up taking manga and anime for granted had developed a new communal illusion as a new communication tool.

Motoko Arai has also been active as a novelist, publishing “Till the Day I Become a Cat” from Cobalt Bunko.

The author who laid the foundation for light novels

Saeko Himuro, a university student, made her debut as a novelist with “Sayonara Arurukan”, which won an honorable mention in the 10th Novel Junior (now Cobalt) New Novelist Award for Youth. Later, with the romantic comedy series “How wonderfully Japanesque” (serialized in the April 1981 issue of “Shosetsu Junior”, the predecessor of “Cobalt”, with a total circulation of more than 7.2 million copies) set in the society of court nobility, she quickly established herself as the signature author of Cobalt Bunko, and became one of the leading authors of the label in the 1980s and 1990s. In the 1980s and 1990s, she became a representative of the label. She was a key figure in the girls’ novel boom.

1978 SF Boom Arrives

Trends in the science fiction industry

Star Wars Poster

George Lucas’s science fiction film “Star Wars” was released in Japan, and the popularity of science fiction exploded, ushering in a science fiction boom. Until then, science fiction had been something that only a few enthusiasts enjoyed.

This work is also said to have influenced “Mobile Suit Gundam”.

Trends in the manga industry

Urusei Yatsura, Vol.1

Rumiko Takahashi’s manga “Urusei Yatsura” was published in Weekly Shonen Sunday.

It is a slapstick love comedy that revolves around a womanizing high school student, Ataru Moroboshi, and a beautiful alien girl with mysterious powers, Lum, who loves him. It is the originator of the “fallen” type of story, and the template for harem stories and slapstick romantic comedies that continue to this day. Together with Mitsuru Adachi’s “Touch” (1981), it became one of the most popular romantic comedy manga of the 1980s.

In contrast to “Touch,” which was a Junaiseki-style [nostalgic youth-style] coming-of-age story, “Urusei Yatsura” is a work with moe elements, with characters with extreme personalities. The heroine, Lum, is the original heroine with moe elements: she says “~daccha”, has horns, has the superpower to shoot electric shocks, and wears a “tiger-striped” bikini. Her style has had a tremendous influence on school light novels since the 2000s.

1979 The Birth of Game-like Realism

Trends in the animation industry

The TV anime “Mobile Suit Gundam” was broadcasted.

At the same time, the novel version of “Mobile Suit Gundam” was published by Sonorama Library by the general director of the TV series, Yoshiyuki Tomino. Unlike the TV series, the novel version took a completely different turn, with the main character Amuro dying in battle, and became a hit, selling over 500,000 copies in three volumes (game-like realism).

  • This work was also released in the U.S. [in the 1990s] and sold 75,000 copies in all three volumes.
  • The Gundam series has been published in many novelized versions by Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko and other publishers, and is a hidden force in the world of novels.
  • According to a popular theory in the doujinshi world, the originator of boys’ love is “Char Aznable and Garma Zabi” from Mobile Suit Gundam.

Representative works

Guin Saga, Vol.1

The first volume of Kaoru Kurimoto’s “Guin Saga”, “The Leopard Head Mask”, was published by Hayakawa Bunko JA.

It is the world’s longest epic fantasy novel, with 130 volumes of the official biography and 21 volumes of the external biography. It was translated into many countries around the world and became a huge hit, selling over 30 million copies in total.

The worldview is medieval with magic, but science fiction elements such as the existence of a transcendent race that surpasses the gods, spaceships that are their relics, and matter transfer devices appeared with each volume.

Kaoru Kurimoto is also the woman who created the origin of boys’ love, and is counted as the founder of the genre.

Perhaps because of this, homosexual elements often appeared in the Guin Saga, causing controversy because they projected the author’s preferences too much.

Manga semiotics and “manga/anime realism

In an interview with the monthly magazine “Paf”, Tezuka Osamu spoke of his theory of manga semiotics, which states that “manga is a combination of symbols and their patterns.”

Writer Eiji Otsuka continued to think about this theory, and in the 2000s, he found a new literary possibility in it, saying that manga and light novels depict real human bodies and emotions in a naturalistic way, while using symbolic characters.

For example, Osamu Tezuka’s medical manga “Black Jack” depicts subjects such as human death, childbirth, the limits of medicine, and the bond between parents and children, while using symbolic characters. The heart and other organs depicted in the manga are very realistic. This work has been criticized for its errors in medical knowledge, but on the contrary, the content was that close to reality. This is called “manga/anime realism.

The Birth of Game-like Realism

In 2007, the critic Hiroki Azuma published a book titled “The Birth of Game-like Realism” in which he argued that light novels were created using (or influenced by) the concept of “game-like realism”. In his book, “The Birth of Game-like Realism,” he argues that game-like meta-narrative worldviews, such as the concept of IF, in which the story changes depending on the choices of the game player, and the time loop structure, in which the player lives in infinitely different worlds (resetting and starting over), have been incorporated into the novel format.

Hiroki Azuma traces the origin of this idea to “Record of Lodoss War” published in 1988 and the early works of Osamu Tezuka.

However, another origin can be found in Tomino’s anime “Mobile Suit Gundam” and its novelized version. The novelized version depicts a different development (dead end) in which the main character, Amuro, dies in battle. This was a time when home video game consoles were not yet on the market, and there were no adventure-type bishojo games, but there was already a sense of game-like realism that there might have been another story with a different development and ending.

The first anime novelization of “Space Battleship Yamato” was the second theatrical anime released in 1978, in which most of the crew was killed in a battle with the enemy and the Yamato disappeared in a suicide attack on an enemy ship, but the work became so popular that they were brought back to life and a sequel was made. This was the development of the story. The director was dissatisfied with the ending of the film, and a rewritten TV anime version of the film was made in the same year. As a result, the story and ending were changed, and the movie version became a parallel world. This suggests that light novels have been under the influence of game-like realism since their inception.

Further back, in Yasutaka Tsutsui’s novel “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time,” published in 1967, there is an episode that resembles a game reset, in which the heroine learns that her friend is going to be in a traffic accident and moves to avoid it. It is thought that there is a germ of game-like realism in SF novels.

Eiji Otsuka was negative about this form of game-like realism because it could not depict naturalistic real death, but Hiroki Azuma says that light novels with game-like realism use the form to emphasize the importance of life in reverse.

One of the light novels that became a hit by adopting game-like realism is the “Haruhi Suzumiya series” (published in 2003).

%d bloggers like this: