Discussion Your journey into reading novels

i got really addicted to anime and binged all the anime series I could find, but then burnt myself out and stopped. after a while of not watching anime, I found desolate era and some royalroad novels and some light novels, then I got addicted to novels from that, and here I am. desolate era and ISSTH were probably some of the ones that got me addicted to CN novels.

i also haven't watched anime in years, from when I got burnt out and found these novels; still can't watch anime without getting bored

 

Cradle series by Will Wight introduced me to/made me curious about xianxia > I Shall Seal the Heavens > Desolate Era > bunch of stuff I eventually dropped for whatever reason

 

I started from reading stories on my school books when I was in elementary. Around fourth grade until sixth grade. Then on seventh grade a classmate introduced me to reading ebooks. 2013ish. I got reallyyy addicted that I didn't want to sleep and read in odd places like under the teacher's table. I tried using wattpad that time but my phone can't download any apps. And it's pretty complicated for me to use it via desktop. I mastered it on eight grade. I read in wattpad almost every hour. Starting from local novels then to international novels. On eleventh and twelfth grade, I used wattpad much less than before. I watched anime and then read manga. Then I read a manhua where it bridged me to read CN. It started around May last year.

 

Not gonna lie SAO 16.5 is what got me reading web/light novel and then i discover LMS and read the entire 20 volume that is available back then in one school week.

 

Started reading Coiling Dragon a long time ago. My cousin was hooked and kept telling me to check it out. Once I started chapter 1, it was game over. Nowadays the fires just not there for me. Same old cookie cutter novels, arrogant young masters, and the usual mc being called trash in every chapter leaves a sour taste. Found a couple gems I'm reading, but not reading as much as before sadly

 

I watched the drama version of 步步惊心 and then I read the novel for extra scenes that didn't make it into the drama version.

 

Are we talking about novels in general or just webnovels/LN?

Because while I got to webnovels and LN from manga, the reason I got into anime and manga was because of Berserk, and the whole reason I tried that one was because I was reading a lot of western fantasy at the time.

 

If it's about reading novels that show up on NU, I stated by learning Chinese and reading wuxia novels back in the days before any of them got translated. I started branching out with Tong Hua and Huang Yi after I moved to reading on eReaders, but I didn't get into reading web novels until much later.

What got me into that was a couple of different people recommending Yue Guan at the same time. I read one of his books and was amazed at both how good it was and all the things that could be done with historical novels, and I haven't looked back since! Now, I still haven't come across any writers as good as he is, but I've still read a lot of good books in the meantime.

I did the same thing! The difference is that I was already reading Chinese novels back then and it only got me into reading more Tong Hua.

 

My mother died when I was 2 years old. Since Dad was not always at home, I used to read books to erase loneliness. Beginning with children's stories, it gradually developed into adventure, fantasy, myth and mystery. Now I have joined this because I have a desire to read Asian stories. That's because I was addicted to watching animations.

 

My route was Anime, Webcomics and webtoons, Web novel, Manga (used to be on a site called mangarock but the shut down that site so o i read my manga off Mangadex, highly recommended) and now I read novels (, manga and bit of anime too)

 

Got really into classic Hong Kong cinema especially up to the early 90s and decided I wanted to learn to understand Mandarin and Cantonese and also learn more about Chinese literature and history. Atm working on listening comprehension with audiobooks and translations, webnovels are the easiest to understand, but also incorporating other kinds of literature as my understanding gets better.

 

My entertainment journey: My mom always wanted us to sound well learned so we had lots of books growing up, fairy tales, just so stories etc. But my first foray into mature reading were Mills and Boon novels at the tender age of eleven which my mom gave me because I told her I was bored and had finished reading all my books . I am so wordy now so it did something.

I went to boarding school where the only entertainment were books, gossiping or polishing my drawing skills. I read a large variety of weird and wonderful novels from super adult and glamourous Jackie Collins novels to super teeny bopper ones like Sweet Valley. I started to write little fairy tales as well - they were crap.

After leaving boarding school, I had to hang around at home for my university entrance exams and they started showing anime on the local tv channel, Rurouni Kenshin and Ninja Scroll (I'm still not sure if the channel knew what they were showing us with that one), it was great - I was fascinated. I never realised that there was a 'class' of cartoons labelled anime, Kenshin was the first time that I noticed a distinction between western cartoons and anime. I have since found out, Voltron, Speed Racer, Astroboy, and all those actiony cartoons were anime! When I think about it I have been watching anime since...since!

Anyway, I moved to England and got well into watching anime, then decided I wanted to see what the actual japanese drama was like, so began to watch j-drama, and then wondered what all the other asian countries' drama were like and began to watch k-drama, and c- and tw-drama, th-drama... Then I wondered what their books were like, and my first novel was this strange atrocity of a translation called Being Loved Exclusively By You - I had to copy that novel to Word to edit to read it peacefully. The story itself was just batshit, yandere guy with rabbit girl, cray-cray back story. In the end, I was like this girl is so stupid, why is she in love with this bully? Little did I know that it was only the tip of the nonsensically ridiculous iceberg...

Looking for more, I found forums, and shushengbar which led me here to Novel updates.

 

went from anime to manga, read some manhwa that weren't updating fast enough so I decided to read their novels to finish the story quicker. From there I got into wuxiaworld and wuxia in general.

 

pppppppppppppppp

 

I started on wattpad, reading those basic white girl novels. Then I came across a webnovel, I didn't realize it was at the time, and forgot about it. I started reading webtoons in middle school when my sister introduced them to me, and that led to mangas. Somehow, that webnovel I read years ago was still fresh in my memories, so I searched it up and came to novel updates. Then I became a novel fanatic after realizing that a lot of my fav mangas had lightnovels and I couldn't wait for updates. Surprisingly, anime came after the whole novel thing though. Also I was already a huge bookworm, and don't hate me for this, but they didn't really have LGBTQ+ books a few years ago.

 

I started watching anime, actually there's a game that copied tokyo ghoul and then i kinda did watch tokyo ghoul and on netflix and then just watch anime on netflix until i can't get enough and then when i watched all good and old and long anime's i started reading manga and then just like that i read manga read and read all manga,manwha,manhua all trash,gold trash,bad translation,good arts and all long manga and one day i saw and got interested in the manhua called soul land and then i read and interest me so i started reading the light novel and then boom but i'm still a beginner on the world of light novels compared to manga and anime

 

Anime -> Manga -> Novels
Didn't watch Anime at all. Then a friend recommended me some Animes to watch. Bindged all of them. I really wanted to know. Since the anime is shown in seasons. I couldn't wait till the next season is released a year later. So I somehow came across that the anime is the adaptation of the manga. So got into reading Mangas.

Same thing happend with manga. It took to long for the next chapter to release. Since some manga are the adaptation of the light novel. I got into reading Light Novels.

Then I came across Novelupdates and found Chinese web novels. Got into CN Novels through Coiling Dragon when it was still translating.

 

I started anime in 2014, but I didn't even know there were any novels ... just manga and since I don't understand a lot of English it took me a while to get in, just starting in early 2020

 

I started reading printed novels when i am in middle school, from harry potter, musashi, winetou, sherloc holmes, and stuff writen by kho ping hoo (the first wuxia i read, i am pretty sure that not a lot of people know about his works. Sometimes there are some weird stuff that borderline xianxia there. I am not sure if his novels are translated into english or not. There are a lot of tropes used in modern CN web novels too)

as for digital novels, i started from visual novels (chaos head, eien no aselia, muv-luv, etc. a lot of old VNs are very weird), then i found baka tsuki (SAO, campione, heavy object, hakomari, etc). At that time there are no translated KR novels, i think LMS was the first translated KR novel. the first translated CN novels that i read is Stelar Transformation, then Coiling Dragon

at that time there are no novel updates, so i need to refresh my novels bookmark every day (it is very long bookmark, 3 bookmark folders), then Aho Updates appeared, which make it easier to follow novels translation and original novels.

after aho updates no longer updated, i move to novel updates, where there are alot of new novels, mostly CN. if i am not wrong, tony made novel updates to keep updated about coiling dragon

 

I have read books ever since I was a kid. Then I discovered manga and anime. Anime has always been secondary since I prefer reading. Nowadays I read both manga and novels (and also some non-fiction). I sometimes still watch anime but it's rare to find anything I'd like.