CATDOLL: Japanese light novels reveal another weird work. Can NICO barrage be used to make money?

On April 9, a new light novel titled "彼女と俺とみんなの播ス (Her, Me, and Everyone's Live Broadcast)" was released in Japan. However, customers who bought the book discovered a shocking scene...

Controversial light novel "The Girl Is Born"

Judging from the title, this work published by Dengeki Bunko tells the story of a live broadcast on a website. The book jacket also has the slogan "Natural Girl's Youth NICO Live Broadcast". The girl on the cover is sitting in front of a computer with headphones in her hand and looks very cute. Everything is no different from an ordinary light novel. However, after opening the book, it turns out to be like this -

What is the purpose of the whole barrage...

Turn a few more pages, and nothing seems to have changed?

The same content is displayed when you scroll back

After a reader took a photo of the book and uploaded it to the Internet, it quickly sparked a discussion among many Japanese netizens. Faced with this practice of directly using the bullet comments on the NICONICO website to increase the word count, some people once again lamented that "light novels are doomed" and admired the courage of the buyer; some people criticized it, saying that "this is also a good way to make money, saving time and effort, after all, light novels are enough just to read the illustrations"; amid the controversy, some people remained on the sidelines, speculating that "this should not be the main text but just illustrations? But it is also awkward to use bullet comments as illustrations..."

It is not uncommon for light novel authors to do anything to earn royalties. For example, the chatterbox Nisio Isin likes to use large texts to occupy the space, or some authors use one character (interjection or punctuation) to reduce the workload. However, it is the first time that an author has directly brought barrage into the novel. The official explanation for this is that in order to show the barrage effect of NICONICO live broadcast, the novel uses a cross-page method to display the barrage content and perfectly restore the barrage. Of course, this is not considered cheating on word count and royalties.

Cover image of "The Girl Is Born"

"She, Me, and Everyone's Live Broadcast" is a light novel written by Gao Feng, a light novel author, based on NICONICO live broadcast. It tells the story of the boy "Harima Takuto" and the girl "Miyama Chiharu". Harima Takuto, who has become a "live actor", was once a well-known Nico live broadcaster, while his classmate, the silent girl Miyama Chiharu, is very keen on live broadcasting in private. In this way, Miyama Chiharu asked Harima Takuto for live broadcasting skills, and a youth comedy officially began...