Ordinary schoolgirl sets out to save fantasy world from an evil dragon while readers set out on the path to learn English.
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Though summer vacation is a lot shorter in Japan than it is in the U.S., most tudents here aren’t exactly itching to go back to school once it’s done. Even worse, since it falls in the middle of the Japanese school year, the end of summer break is also the start of the second, and more demanding, semester.
Needless to say, a lot of kids would rather blow off school and kick back with a good manga, which is exactly what one library in Japan is encouraging them to do. The reason, however, is far more important than just finding out what happens to their favorite fictional characters .
A few months ago, the announcement came that High Speed!, the light novel that serves as the starting point to the swimming anime/abdominal exercise motivator Free!, was being adapted into an animated theatrical feature. Unfortunately, the movie’s not scheduled to open until December, but that doesn’t mean fans will have to spend the whole summer without the tautly toned team of aquatic athletes, as a manga adaptation of High Speed! is set to go on sale before the fall.
Set to be published on 10 April is My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute and Brush Up on Middle School English by Chukei Publishing.
As the name suggests, this book lets students bone up on the required English curriculum set to the backdrop of the My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute popular series of erotic game (eroge) otaku themed light novels. Yes, someone actually made this.
Japanese “light novels” are a type of short and often serialized young adult novel that are usually heavy on dialogue and light on narrative depth. The growing popularity of light novels has made them common choices for manga and anime adaptations, such as the Haruhi Suzumiya series.
One of the more popular light novel series in recent years is My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute, which tells the story of a normal high school student who finds out his prodigious younger sister is actually a closet otaku, obsessed with anime and incest-themed adult computer games…
It’s probably less unwholesome than it sounds (at least by Japanese standards), and the point is that the series has become so popular that it has spawned an anime and manga series as well as several video games.
It has also seemed to usher in a new craze of light novels about the relationship between normal older brothers and their not-so-normal little sisters.
That’s totally wholesome…right…?
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