A Light Novel With a 196-Page Title?
For years, it has been common knowledge that light novels often feature extremely long titles. The reason is straightforward and has been explained many times: the titles aim to quickly convey the story’s premise to potential readers.
Light novels sell less than manga, which are comics and generally easier to market. As a result, it became almost a necessity to use a story synopsis as the title. But now, there’s buzz about a light novel with a title that spans 196 pages.
A Light Novel With a 196-Page Title?
Some news outlets have reported that this light novel was written by Yuta Tanaka, who supposedly took the trend of long titles to the extreme. The alleged cover is mostly filled with text, while the rest of the 196 pages consist of the title.
The original reports also claimed that the novel, nicknamed Nagai Tatoru (Long Title), was set to receive an anime adaptation described as revolutionary. The anime’s story would supposedly be told entirely through the opening sequence, which would also be as long as the title.
But what’s the truth behind Nagai Tatoru?
It All Started With Anime Maru
Anime Maru was an anime satire site that existed a few years ago. As stated on their Patreon page: “Anime Maru is not real. It’s a humor website publishing parody anime news, accumulating over 7 million views since 2014. We do all this while proving (as seen in our comments section) that some people will believe anything they read online.”
The story of the 196-page title light novel is just another satirical piece they created that some people took seriously. Although the site is no longer active (I couldn’t find much beyond their Patreon), Anime Maru published many ridiculous articles that left readers laughing.
Some memorable examples include:
- Scientists discover that running like Naruto is actually faster
- Steam will automatically ban users with anime avatars
- Anime Expo to test new technology to detect body odor
At one point, even reputable news outlets cited Anime Maru as a legitimate source. In conclusion, this 196-page title light novel does not exist.
You can read a brief history of Anime Maru here.
via Você Sabia Anime