

I live in Hong Kong, and at least from my observation, light novels and comics
are quite different things in Asia. However it seems that on sites like MAL,
which is not of the Asian origin, they categorize light novels and comics as
one.

Are light novel and comic seen as similar things in English speaking area? Or
is there any special reason for services such as MAL to decide light novel and
comic should fall under the same type?

I also noticed that this site is named "Anime & Manga", but also contains a
light-novel-production tag. Hence the same categorization seems to happen here
as well.


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2018-07-20T06:57:50.713
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2018-07-20T12:26:38.163
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question
terminology
Why MAL (MyAnimeList) is putting light novel and comic together?


I wouldn't say comics and light novels are the same thing. To be even more
precise, I think there's even a big difference between Comics and Manga [but
more about that can be read over
here](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/13257/1458).

This distinction can also be found strongly in the readers. Not all light
novel readers like manga, and vice versa. This being the case in both Asian
and Western cultures.

However, on services such as MAL and A&M, it does make sense to throw them
under the same category.

A&M aims to be a Q&A platform focused on a fandom, which commonly identifies
themselves under the terms 'anime and manga' fans. However, the people that
are part of this fandom don't limit themselves to 1 specific medium, as some
stories may differ/extend through out Visual novels, light novels, manga and
anime/movies.

This also leads to questions about Visual novels, light novels, and the likes.
Which is also the reason we have a tag for [light-novel-
production](/questions/tagged/light-novel-production "show questions tagged
'light-novel-production'")

To take from a MAL perspective, you want to keep track of what you have
watched/read, whether this is a light novel, or a manga/comic.

So TL;DR, this form of categorization is mostly for convenience, and reaching
a larger chunk of a/the fandom.


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answer