The primary way I engage with the Japanese language – outside of Japanese news, obviously – is through novels. I read my fair share of both traditional and so-called “light novels” – breezy books with fantastical settings such as medieval landscapes and other worlds (isekai).
If there’s one thing true about the modern light novel, or ranobe, it’s that many of their authors are fond of stupidly long titles. It didn’t always used to be like that, though. When did it change? And – more elusively – why?
The trend toward increasingly ridiculous titles
Japanese light novels developed from the pulp novels of the 1970s. The term itself, according to author Kim Morrissy at Anime News Network, dates back to around 1990. They’ve begun to gain traction in recent years outside of Japan as well with the rising international popularity of anime, as some titles ultimately receive anime adaptations. (For example, the popular anime Sword Art Online and Re:Zero were both originally online light novels.)
The titles in this genre weren’t always insane. However, over time, the longest titles have only gotten longer. One title in 2018 – The Former Old Geezer Hero’s Reincarnated and Helps Out At the Inn, yada yada – was 72 characters long. However, a 2024 report identifies the winner – rough translation: I Was Exiled From the Black Nation But The Automatic Summoning of My Heroic Spirits Means I Live Easy. These 1,000 Top-Class Heroic Spirits Take Care of Business In The Background, And Everyone’s So Nice And Easygoing I’m Not Going Back Now – as topping out at a whopping 99 characters.
So when did the shift happen? As it happens, back in 2019, a social media user tried to figure that out.
As IT Netlab summarizes, X user @GenreCodeLovers did heroic work charting the length of the average light novel title from 1975 to 2018. (The rows represent years and the columns are title lengths.)
As you can see, title size steadily grows as the years go on, with the average title length growing from around seven characters in 1975 to exceeding 30 characters in 2018. Up until around 1980, there were no titles over 30 characters long. By 2018, however, there were hundreds. The median title length also grew over time.
While the data shows titles getting steadily longer over time, the inflection point seems to be around 2016. That’s when the trend for titles over 30 characters kicked into full swing, with over 100 titles clocking in at or over that limit.
GenreCodeLovers’ data makes clear that it’s not just the case that the longest title has gotten longer. Rather, more titles are using longer titles than ever.
But…why are light novel titles so long?
That leaves the question: Why have light novel titles gotten so long?
There’s no clear answer to this. Some fans speculate it’s due to the influence of online web novel sites, like Shōsetsuka ni Narō, where many modern light novel titles get their start. Longer titles online are catchier and set a work apart from the crowd – an important factor when trying to stand out from tens of thousands of other would-be light novel authors.
The online format itself probably helped, too. Since web novels typically don’t have covers, writers weren’t restricted by the need to make their titles fit within a cover graphic – a decision that is now plaguing poor cover designers who have to wrangle these monstrosities when a web novel gets picked up for a print run.
Some hypothesize that the increase of fantasy titles in the genre – particularly isekai titles – has pushed the title limit higher. One user argues that long titles are more apt to contain keywords like “other world,” “reincarnation,” “summoning,” “the strongest,” “NEET,” “exiled,” and the like.
To be fair, most fans know pieces by their abbreviated, three- to four-syllable names. For example, the one I’m reading now – There’s No Freaking Way I’ll be Your Lover! Unless…, released as わたしが恋人になれるわけないじゃん、ムリムリ！（※ムリじゃなかった!?）; Watashi ga Koibito ni Nareru Wakenaijan, Muri Muri! (*Muri Janakatta!?) – is simply known as Wata-Nare by its fans.
These days, titles can also change when they go to print, getting either longer or shorter. The titles pose a particular challenge for translators. Perhaps the best handling I’ve ever seen of this is with 女だから、とパーティを追放されたので伝説の魔女と最強タッグを組みました！ (Onna dakara, to Party wo Tsuihou Sareta no de Densetsu no Majo to Saikyou Tag wo Kumimashita), which translated the long title as My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress! but also goes by the pithy one-word name Sexiled. Pure brilliance.
Whatever the cause, long titles don’t seem to be going anywhere. I don’t doubt we’ll see the day when this gets reflected in English-language Young Adult and fantasy novels as a new generation that’s grown up on Japanese ranobe get in on the act.
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