There is this baseless myth going amongst the masses that says 'clever/intelligent people read a lot' or if you put it another way - people who read a lot are more intelligent. So how come that no matter what novel I read I can always find a couple of retards in comment/review sections vehemently crying about harem/racism/sexism/animal abuse/vegetarian ways/the unjust treatment he received today at school/ED or even hemorrhoids. Till today I've thought that it was pretty normal. I mean, you can find such retards and clowns everywhere, especially on the internet. It's useless to communicate with such people and normally you simply ignore them, or have a laugh at their expense. But today when I've encountered another romance/harem hater like this I've thought about it a bit deeper and realized that it's actually weird. Very weird. To begin with, purely based on my own experience, I can say that reading web novels is a strange hobby to have by itself. I'm talking about ASIAN WEB NOVELS that we can find on NU, not a romantic kind for old housewives! Even to simply come into contact with them you need to be pretty deep into anime/otaku territory. And it's not like you will be interested in WNs simply cause you've seen a couple of good anime serials either. For me it was like this: One day when I was in the early years of my middle school, a new transfer student arrived and joined my class. What a fcking quirky nerd he was! He just couldn't stop talking about his vietnamese pornographic cartoons commonly adressed as 'anime'. Back then if you told the wrong people that you was secretly watching some 'naruto' at home deep in the night, it wouldn't be surprising if you ended up beaten black and blue. Long story short, thanks to his influence, about a year later I've decided to give some anime a try too. I liked it, and so my 'anime' life started. Several years later I've finished all there was to watch. By now I've seen more than 300+ anime titles. At some tragic moment there was nothing good to watch anymore. So what do? My solution was to focus on manga next. While I was reading, new anime serials appeared. So sometimes I went back to watch them. Nothing lasts forever though. At some very very tragic moment I was left with no manga to read too. And finally it was time for them to appear! Web novels! Yes! Web novels, now I choose you! It was a long pathetic-sounding journey full of my childish passion and if you scan my head probably a 2d anime character will appear instead of brain. It's not like I've strictly followed such routine. I have some other hobbies too. I've spent some time with my friends offline, played offline/online games, read some normal books etc. In the end I've become tired of anime cliches, LoL (online game), manga is unable to keep with my consumption, so I mainly read WNs in my free time now. It's worth mentioning that I have no friends or acquaintances who read web novels as their main hobby (I've never even encountered such people IRL). It's too time consuming and there are 'better' alternatives for them (anime/games etc). In conclusion I can say that not everyone can reach such lows and become a WN reader. On this long journey most people will be baptized by anime/manga shounen/shoujo harem genres, will at first enjoy some cliche situations and later will simply learn to bear with them even if they've seen them more than 10 times. Like an experienced veterans, they will be able to face all kinds of bullshit settings and not many things will be able to surprise them anymore! So what's your story? How come you're here on NU? Don't you think that experienced people shouldn't be surprised simply cause they saw some harem vibes? Veterans of the circle should have some 'Self-Respekt'!
Let's just say, that I love reading. I read a lot. My first web novel platform is Wattpad where I found so many great books -including some of the worst too-. I stumbled to a translated CN novel. So, because I couldn't wait for the updates, I searched the title on google. Found it on Volarenovels. Then I found Novelupdates, made my account because I wanted to ask about forgotten titles. Now I'm, here
I only started watching anime in high school, after changing schools. My first anime was actually DxD, good friends i know. I reached to LNs first, because i wanted to know what happened after the anime, in the good old Baka-Tsuki. I found this site in the BT forum and i started searching for new things to read, i had to much free time so i just read like 10h day.
That's very similar to me! Unlike Video Games which is very toxic and sometimes unfulfilling especially when having lose streaks and Manga/Anime which is way too long to update. Web Novels is like a mushroom that would rapidly grow everywhere. As long as you try to look properly you'll eventually find multiple good novels at once.
I switched to Wattpad for fanfic when I was stanning ONE DIRECTION! After that opened manga 'cuz no new anime was there to watch.. And finally got into KR/CN manhwas/manhuas.. Now it's an ongoing passion~~^^
I started watching Animes in my childhood. Then I discovered that Manga existed, a library of a bigger town had them. So after reading Hunter x Hunter and romance stories like Train Men, I then discovered Games. Behold, I stumble across a comment that there was a novel about the manga that only had a few chapters. The rest is history.
Went from manga to anime and finally, web novels. Just to be clear, I have read/watched harem manga/anime but most of the time it’s not done well and is just for fan service. After all these years it’s inevitable to become pickier. Although I do find it strange that people would complain about MC having a harem in the reviews since it’s in the tags. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s their discontent at the harem dragging down the plot
I watched anime for a short period of time in my life but I liked manga a lot more. The issue was that I was very imaginative and paused a lot (it’s hard for me to focus) and I still have issues trying to finish anime’s today unless I’ve already know the plot and it becomes “fanservice” for me or that it’s something completely new/on the educational side. I started my novel journey when I was introduced to manhwa and was going down a Asian novel rabbit hole. I think people eventually reach a saturation point, cause I read some crazy novels and you see none of that in any comically bad animations or reality-TV. Novels don’t need a ton of constraints.
I used to watch anime's those were English dubbed during my school days without realizing they were dubbed version, like DBZ and pokemon. Later when I started working I started watching subbed versions. The first one was Naruto , the second was fairy tail, and third was one peace. Then I went on an anime spree. After running out of anime that I wanted to watch, I came across Light novels. The first light novel I read was Oregairu. Of course the reason was that I finished watching 2nd season and I wanted to know the rest of the story. After that, it was time for another spree. It was at the same time that I started Manga as well. There was some anime that didn't have LN. I think the first one I read manga was Senryuu shojo. Then AOT and a few like that.. I explored quite a few genres from isekai to yuri. Then just like what happened with anime, there were a few LN I wanted to know what happens next where even manga hadn't caught up with it. So I looked into it and realized some of them were adapted from something called Web novels. The first web novel I read was Noukin. That's how I ended up in NU. Then starting from there I've read countless Webnovels and even started reading using MTL from Narou and kakuyomu.. Now started working as a fan translator for some WN as well (well, MTL editor more like). That's my story..
That saying is from a time when books were rare and most of them could be used to advance your studies. Nowadays, people read and write WhatsApp messages like it's nobodies business, but I doubt they get much smarter doing so. As for me, I watched DBZ as a kid & loved reading comics. I got into reading mangas online, wanted to see if there were more chapters for the manwha Legendary Moonlight Sculptor and ended up being shown a site with plain text and no pictures.
I read novels since primary school then a friend lend me the 1,2&3 Naruto and I started borrowing manga too at the library. Then I looked for manga online. Also found manhwa. Then came isekai. And after seeing people commenting about the original novel I went to look for it when I hit a cliffhanger. I found NU. And reading webnovels was very nice because I could read it on my phone and it used a miserable amount of data so I could read books during class. When before I had to scrap for the time between class or finish my exercises in record time to open my book. A book is too big to be discreet, I almost got it confiscated a few times. And my phone screen was too small to read manga nicely. Then came the pandemic and I couldn't go to the library anymore so I went from a mix of american translated published novels, manga&webtoon and webnovels to 100% webnovels somehow. Welp.
Honestly I'm not sure if I found anime first or manga first... I think it's anime because I watch anime purely whatever on TV. My house does not have internet when i was younger so... TV is my best friend. the first anime I watched is Naruto, and I also remember watching XxX Holic, yes it's horror back in the days. After that, i continue watching classic anime such as Air Gear, Fairy Tail, Bleach, Baka and Test Summon the Beast. Only then I found manga because I found that I got less interested in anime that was showing on TV. During this time, I found a way to get internet, I only can have access to internet when I was eating at restaurant that have wifi. I becomes a shoujo manga reader, I downloaded a bunch of episodes in my phone using the restaurant wifi and was happy my friend are interested in it too but sadly she stops reading manga after a while... After got bored of reading shoujo manga, I found wattpad. A bunch of werewolf, vampire novel that are in wattpad. Including the mafia related novel. Basically i becomes a teen romance reader. Then... I found novelupdate. I don't remember how I found novelupdate I just found it... I think it's because of anime that I watched during that time after I got tired of wattpad. I'm not satisfied with the anime, I'm dying to know what happen next so I searched the internet then I found there is continuation in the novel. I read and read and read... Until today. I still on novelupdate. Probably gonna takes time to left this novelupdates... I can't imagine dropping novelupdate when basically all the novels I read up to this point most of them are from here. Although I read wattpad before, It cannot be compare the amount of novel there (wattpad) and here (novel update) Maybe I already reached a thousand novel or more?
I first read manga and then novels just... kinda happened naturally? I don't think it's anything too weird tbh. Once you get into it, it's like a whirlpool that sucks you in, y'know? You don't need to be in deep contact with otaku territory or whatever to like webnovels imo, so yeah.
Reading manga is already pretty deep though? It will be a new version of comics for unsuspecting reader at first, gradually you will be influenced by various cliches and Japanese culture. Actually the only thing that can be considered 'not deep' is probably to watch a couple of anime serials on TV and something like Hayao Miyazaki films in cinema every once in a while. After all if reading manga and gradually switching to WNs is considered 'light' then what do you need to do to be called otaku? To cosplay as a trap? It was over the moment you got this manga!
I started by solely reading titles of JP stories that were adapted to anime due to pure curiosity of what would happen next since anime tends to have a lot more cliffhangers, not saying novels don't too but yes ya get what I mean. Same shit happened with manhwa till I just ended up reading a ton because I had a shit ton of time during my school break and figured "why not deeply get into enovels like this one friend of mine" but they had mostly used the webnovel app back then so I read some from the same app lol. Anyway I enjoy reading and so WN reading caught my interest.
No...? And they were CN actually... guess I should've clarified them as manhuas. But really, all I had to do was download random apps as usual and then I would come across Webcomics. And isn't an otaku someone who's super deep in novels and comics and stuff that they hole up at home and have no social life? I'm not very clear on JP terms, so sorry if I get it wrong. But, just because I read webnovels and comics, doesn't mean they're my whole life. I actually have a social life and interests outside of novels, you know? Lol. Novels and such can only be considered a hobby. Most everyone has read books, but that doesn't make them all bookworms. Calling anyone who reads comics or novels on NU an "otaku" seems pretty extreme to me.
I didn't mean it this way either. 'Otaku' can be used in different situations with different meanings. It's not really consistent even in anine/manga, not to mention outside of it. I think now anyone a bit interested in such asian culture can be called this way.
at first i read manga then anime, when infinite stratos came out, i started to know the world of LN from Baka-tsuki. stay there for a while until a lot of translations taken down cz dcma. then i knew NU from searching about LN/WN
"a bit interested"? Wow the requirements are so low Guess it really doesn't take much to be "deep in otaku territory" then LOL Nvm what I said, if the standards are that low, I don't think the deep part means anything so it's a moot point