CATDOLL: Japan's No. 1 light novel editor: The plot and writing style are not important, as long as I like it

When it comes to Japanese comics and light novels, one job position cannot be ignored, that is, the editor of comics or light novels. Whether a comic or light novel can sell well and be popular depends not only on the efforts of the original author, but also to a large extent on the strength of the editor. Miki Kazuma, who is known as "Japan's No. 1 Light Novel Editor" and is currently the editor of popular novels such as "Sword Art Online", "A Certain Magical Index", and "The Irregular at Magic High School", recently talked about the secret of creating best-selling works and said: "In fact, the writing style and plot of the novel are not important. What is important is love, and I have to like it after reading it."

Kazuma Miki has been the novel editor of Dengeki Bunko since 2001. He is in charge of novels such as Shakugan no Shana, A Certain Magical Index, Sword Art Online, and The Irregular at Magic High School, which are all the mainstays of Dengeki Bunko. Needless to say, his popularity is high, and the total sales of his novels have exceeded 60 million copies, so he is known as the number one light novel editor in Japan.

Miki Kazuma said that the reason why he was able to make so many popular novels popular was because he firmly believed: " Don't be discouraged by failure. If the probability of a popular work being born is only 10%, then one out of ten works will definitely be popular. You must treat your work with a positive attitude. I don't focus on the completeness and readability of the story when selecting novels, but I have to let me finish reading and like it ." I feel that this sentence really speaks out the momentum. He also said about the works of the popular light novel writer Kamachi Kazuma: "To be honest, Kamachi Kazuma's earliest submitted work failed in terms of the story, but you can strongly feel the author's preferences from the lines, and it is also very attractive to readers. It's just that the work was not published in the end, but as long as the shortcomings in that work are corrected, there will be better works."

In fact, we can see that many of the authors of novels written by Kazuma Miki, such as Kamachi Kazuma, Sajima Tsutomu, Iruma Rengen, Fushimi Tsukasa, etc., were rejected by Dengeki Bunko at that time, but Kazuma Miki was able to find the shining points of their works from these rejected ones and praised their works as super popular works. Miki said that the most important thing for an editor is to actively give advice to the author and have an indomitable spirit. "Editors cannot simply deny the proposals of writers. Because for writers, the only one they can rely on is the editor, so they should let the author try it first, and then make changes if it doesn't work."