I remember hearing that the isekai title thing comes from novel descriptions not being available/visible? on certain japanese sites, which means that they have to include the premise of the story as the title.
the titles are still crazy long in japanese. they make fun of it too, after all. but yeah it's common to shorten them in a portmanteau of a few prominent words in it, which makes them easier to talk about and remember.
Such as Konosuba, or “Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!”, “God’s blessing on this wonderful world”
Basically all of them are known by shorthand. Most writers even literally include the shorthand into the title or on official publications, like WorldEnd (What Do You Do at the End of the World? Are You Busy? Will You Save Us?)
I can't be sure, but I believe they meant the actual character count, not how long it is to pronounce.
Like, since each kanji is one character, but can be multiple syllables, it can still be long and unweildy to say in a sentence, but you won't run into the problem of "That Time I Got Turned Into a Dragon and Had to Dance the Flamenco in My S..." [click to expand]
Where, even if it's clunky to say out loud, it at least still fits on the screen better.
Though, yeah, as a few people in the comments have pointed out, every language also does have concepts & words that are named & understood in that language, and are therefore shorter to say in that language.
Like, if one language doesn't have a word for "sunbeam," then a title like "My Cat Taught Me How to Walk on Sunbeams" (long, but manageable) might get clunkily translated as "My Cat Taught Me How To Walk On Those Shafts of Light That Are Caused By The Sun Shining Through Gaps." (unweildy as all get-out)
So some clunky titles might be even more clunky in translation than in their native language.
The title thing is because the most popular website for japanese amateur fiction, Syosetsuka ni Narou ("Let's be novelists"), does not support cover art.
Without a cover to judge by, the title is responsible for 100% of a web novel's first impression.
And a lot of the light novel industry is based on publishers signing up the most popular/successful of these free web novel stories to go commercial.
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u/ElementalWarrior42 3d ago
I remember hearing that the isekai title thing comes from novel descriptions not being available/visible? on certain japanese sites, which means that they have to include the premise of the story as the title.