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I've had this question on my mind for quite some time and saw in an anime again that the characters when not doing much read a thin book.

Reading Book

Does anyone know what this books are because most books are bigger and thicker.

кяαzєя
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OtakuBoi
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1 Answers1

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That's actually a pretty common size for Japanese novels (Bunkobon, designed to be compact). This blog entry shows the respective sizes of a Sword Art Online book in Japan, Korea and USA - the standard page size for a Japanese book is about A6, or 105mm × 148mm (4.13in × 5.83in).

The thickness of the book is also not unusual - as you can see here, many Japanese books are quite thin even taking into account their small cover dimensions.

EDIT: And as pointed out in a comment, the paper used is often thinner, and both the font size and compactness of the Japanese language also contribute to the book being thinner than their Western counterparts.

ConMan
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    The paper they use is thin, with fairly small type, and on top of that, Japanese on average takes fewer characters to convey the same meaning as most other languages. Compare Japanese Harry Potter with English paperbacks. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Collection-Harry-Potter-Japanese/dp/491551269X vs https://shop.scholastic.com/parent-ecommerce/books/harry-potter-paperback-boxed-set-1-7-9780545162074.html – Kai Apr 30 '19 at 02:59