Discussion Why isn't NU as popular as I would expect it to be?

Some people don't know about light/Web novel. Most of my friends didn't until late I introduced it. They also referred to just watch the anime instead.

 

Does NU have an app?

Also another question for the community: How did you discover NU? Including what media(anime, light novel) did you come from. Also what I'm really interested in is did you find NU though a search engine, a translation site and found that it was linked to NU, from a friend, etc

 

You only need an account if you wanna post something or you need a reading list to keep track of everything.

I found NU through the r/NovelTranslations sub reddit which I found from Stellar Transformations which I found after I finished reading Coiling Dragon from WuxiaWorld which I found through an e-book version of the first 90 some chapter of Martial God Asura on my Kindle.

 

aho-updates stopped updating

i move to nuf

 

The way I found NU was that I was first watching the Overlord anime, found out that it originated from a ‘light novel’ and so looked it up. In which I came across NU, first read all the chapters I could and then decided to check on NU to see what other good stuff it has. And here I am today.

 

you would fail at reading it desu ~

 

Took me awhile to make an account on NUF, even back then there were dozens of weeabs.

Hard to try and see myself as part of them.

 

Usually find the story at the google. But also from other site link

 

It hasn't been that long since NU started. While you mention the rising popularity of anime and manga, you should remember that anime was slowly integrated into our culture, many years ago, even before we knew what it was and only took it as cartoons.
Who didn't watch dragonball, pokemon, digimon and many other such shows as kids, and as we grew up we realized that all these shows were from japan and there were many more that never reached our countries, prompting us to look for more online to satisfy our needs.
Now, considering how many years it took for anime to have such a huge fanbase, it's not odd that chinese novels aren't as acknowledged at this moment. Especially since these novels have many elements that are unusual for the typical western reader, and even divert from what we see from japan.
I mean, so many forms of cultivation, things like people flying on swords or shooting alcohol out of their fingers... when I advertise these novels to my friends, it takes so much effort to explain some things like why someone reaching perfect foundation establishment is exciting, or why a pill concoction arc is so good, and I'm usually regarded with blank stares...

 

Are Japanese Web Novels an exception to amateur skills?

 

In the case of translations, there are a lot more people that know chinese than japanese, it is also easier to translate chinese than japanese. So considering Chinese content gaining popularity, it is obvious that chinese content would be on its way up, especially since there are a lot more chapters for chinese stuff than japanese stuff.

Maybe in the future, chinese stuff will outclass japanese ones, but as it stand JP still has more releases. And CN stuff has suffered a set back and KR stuff is now where the trend is going.

(It also doesn't help that a lot of JP content is on the decline quality wise due to market saturation. I like Isekai for example but the new Isekai stuff is pretty much unreadable)

That said, at end of the day I don't see why you would say this community is more oriented towards chinese stuff.

 

Why do you say it-s more geared towards chinese? Nowadays there are more of them, but if you want to find a japanese translated novel without paying this is the place. You can filter chinese out too, making it most japanese.

Also, it's not this comunity that is geared towards chinese, it is a simple recorder and organizer of what is out there without any kind of bias.

 

Well I was talking about in the West since here there are certainly English/Western Web novels (RRL, fanfic, etc.) however published work that are written by the actual amateur writers with their own amateur skills aren't as popular here (they do exist just that there's an expectation for "professional" writing that result in ghost writers). Now when it comes to Asian Web Novels, it's largely accepted and it's actually quite popular just by looking at all those Asian web novel sites and successful Asian amateur web novel writers especally with all the JP web novel to published light novel type writers

 

okay guys the problem about this is actualy the mindset of westeners although westeners do read novels most of the time they read a real book not a Web novel secondly the numbers of westeners who like reading WN isnt much most readers at NU and NUF are usualy asians and though there are also westeners in the site lastly its the genre i have a online friend who is an american and he himself said a lot of westeners dont usualy read the stuffs we read in here

 

Im assuming you are talking about nuf b/c tons of people use the reading list. Just like how i use batoto for the follow list but never usually go on forums. There is a sea of lurkers in these here waters.

 

I still use baka-updates manga because I have way too much novels that are on reading/holding list for the novels that I paused on or stopped because of slow translation.

 

So it all comes down to culture differences and 2 bombs?

 

The cultural factors as well as economic/industrial differences are what makes web novel so much more popular in the East than West. The West has all the old values and old companies that result in a negative treatment of amateur work as well as escapism literature while the East views it as a profitable industry with emerging and new companies much like our entertainment (comics, movies, tv) industry. Things like Nerd culture was viewed negatively and something that was hidden from other/the public. Only now is Nerd culture cool in the West and otaku(currently mostly only anime) is slowly emerging now in the West.

 

Go to similarweb.com and you will see that NU has about 30 million+ monthly visits whereas NUF only has 3-5 million monthly visits. Which tells that no. of people that use NUF does not tell the popularity of light novels. You might also want to check wuxiaworld.com's statistics and you will see that they get 40 million+ monthly visits.

 

Saying that... On a website for reading stories hundreds (and some thousands) of chapters long...