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Answerman - How many light novels that got official publication originated on Narou?

Eventually, the third step would be a manga adaptation. This is an essential visual expansion of the material, and I actually believe it's critical in determining how successful the eventual anime adaptation will be

I'm not angry about the sites existing mind you , just that Japanese media companies especially Kadokawa in recent years taking advantage of the endless abyss that they can be for stories to grab and as a result people hating on light novels for stuff that don't even originate from them specifically (not helping that most databases really don't specify which ones are based on web novels so people get this wrong warped up idea from that)

people with no writing experience due to there being essentially no barrier to entry unlike Light Novels and Manga and just published books which require some level of experience to become a full on author in the first place

While I think the introduction of all of these Narou-originating works is definitely a good thing for anime as a whole, the old-timer in me can't help but feel a bit sad that this whole process effectively replaced the classic "eroge-based TV anime" trend from the 00's late night anime slots.

Even putting eroge aside, visual novel-based anime in general are barely hanging on as is. Despite 2025 having a surprising mini-resurgence with stuff like Summer Pockets and Nukitashi, those didn't make too big a splash despite the love put into both productions, and it's clear that the big publishers have very little interest in working with VN/eroge-based stories with any kind of regularity, instead opting to mine the talent on Narou since they'd inevitably have more control over the IP.

It's kind of funny, eroge are usually written by professional writers, sometimes with years of experience of writing in the medium, but when it comes to doing media mixes and adaptation to manga/anime they're consistently passed over in favor of the relative newbie writers on Narou.

Anyway, my lament here isn't to say I think Narou stuff should go away, a lot of it is quite good even. But I think the industry as whole would be much more balanced if the VN/eroge companies weren't so thoroughly pushed out of the larger industry ecosystem.

But who knows, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and the Criminal Border anime adaptation is just around the corner? (pls let me cope)

I wish that the article had addressed not every Narou novel is an Isekai, My Happy Marriage is a Romance Fantasy and not an Isekai.

The website serves as the primary source of new IP for the light novel industry, with thousands of stories being scouted for official publication, including massive hits like That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and The Rising of the Shield Hero.

Anyway, my lament here isn't to say I think Narou stuff should go away, a lot of it is quite good even. But I think the industry as whole would be much more balanced if the VN/eroge companies weren't so thoroughly pushed out of the larger industry ecosystem.

I admit, I thought from the question we were going to get some information about the number of light novels that still go through the traditional publishing route. My assumption is all the rom-coms and drama are. Makeine for instance I think the anecdote was that they looked at the manuscript for volume 1 and knew instantly that it was going to make a hit anime.

Oh, you'd be surprised.

...and My Stepmom's Daughter Is My Ex.

The question is about the other direction: How much of the light novel market comes from Narou these days?

The closest this piece comes to answering that is:

Quote:

The website serves as the primary source of new IP for the light novel industry, with thousands of stories being scouted for official publication, including massive hits like That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and The Rising of the Shield Hero.

And while "the primary source of new IP" is striking, it doesn't give an actual proportion. Are we talking 40%? 60%? 80%? Do the Narou-derived LNs published make up a disproportionately large share of actual sales? How much bigger is the share of webnovels in general, including titles from Arcadia, Kakuyomu, Alphapolis, personal blogs like the one Sword Art Online was serialized on, and so forth?

While exact numbers are difficult to pin down, industry estimates suggest that only a few hundred titles per year make the jump from web novel to commercial publication.

It is estimated that approximately 1.14 million novels have been submitted to the platform as of the end of 2025.

That said, yeah, the decline is definitely striking. According to my AniList API queries, The heyday of VN adaptations from, say, 2005 to 2014 saw an average of 9.7 TV anime adaptations per year. The past decade has averaged 2.4 per year.