Each continent has a different reading culture. Asia’s reading culture revolves around the internet, with popular Asian novels also becoming internationally famous through anime and games tie-ins.
Here are some novel genres popular in Asia:
Web Novels
These are popular among both Korean and Mainland Chinese readers, although web novels are much more prominent in Korea, with Naver Corp., Kakao, and many other websites providing Korean netizens an abundance of web novel choices that span fantasy to BL (Boy’s Love), and catering to all sorts of readers. China’s web novel genre focuses more on Sci-Fi and its very own WuXia/XianXia genre. Zhaoyang Jingshi (Cases in Zhaoyang), I Am On Mars, Library of Heavenly Path, Zai Zhi Tian Xia (Rule the Country), and Hao Dang (the broad world) are among the Top 10 Chinese Online Novels.
A web novel could be published by mainstream publishing companies if the series is a big hit on the readers’ ranking list. In China, an example of a popular published novel is 全职高手（The King’s Avatar), which tells the story of competitive e-sports and being a professional gamer in modern times.
Cellphone Novels
Similar to web novels, cellphone novels are written mainly from women and their origins are from Japan where cellphone culture is a lifestyle of many Japanese. However, China also has a wide range of cellphone novel readers, with stories and themes penned by cellphone novel authors who write about romantic fiction covering relationships, lovers, rape, love triangles, and pregnancy. Rather than being printed, the literature is typically provided to the reader chapter per chapter through email, SMS text messages, or via subscription to an online writing and sharing website.
Light Novels
A popular Asian literary genre, Light Novels are a style of Japanese literature targeted at young adult readers – high school and middle school students. Light novels tend to have long titles, such as Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai (Oreimo for short), I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse, I Couldn’t Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job. It is a marketing tactic for publishers to draw in potential readers by giving away the plot within the title. A popular light novel plot would be isekai, which would have the protagonist being transported from the modern world to a fantasy medieval era society.
However, not all light novels are of the isekai genre. Series like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Durarara!! and A Certain Magical Index, have their setting in modern Japan, with sub genres that include Supernatural and Sci-fi.
Light novel translations to English and Chinese are available both online and in niche bookstores.
These publications are bingeable for those who are not avid readers. Light novels have illustrations to help visualize the ongoing story, while both web and cellphone novels are short in chapters due to word count. There is something for ‘lazy’ readers for Asian publications.
