12 Best Light Novels With Female Protagonists You Should Read

Highlights

• Female-led light novels are overshadowed by male-led titles in terms of volume, but popular ones still get anime adaptations.
• Some well-known female-led light novels include Bofuri, The Saga of Tanya the Evil, and I’m Not a Spider.
• Many female-led light novels are available in English, but some are still unlicensed and only available in Japanese.

Light novels with female protagonists are overshadowed by male-led titles simply by sheer volume. But female-led series still get play. The most popular, and repeatedly recommended, titles even get anime adaptations.

Some well-known titles include Bofuri, The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Ascendance of a Bookworm, I’m Not a Spider, and Book Girl. More female-led titles are coming out or are in the middle of their season, including The Apotheracy Diaries, I Shall Survive Using Potions!, and Tearmoon Empire.

But for those looking for fresh reads, or looking for missed classics, plenty of female-led light novels remain in circulation. Most titles are available in English, while others are still unlicensed and only available in Japanese.

Updated January 2, 2024 by Rie Takumi: There are surprisingly fewer light novels with female protagonists compared to male-led titles. Female-led titles are catching up though, as readers want new perspectives, themes, and tropes unique to women’s work. Some want more of the same, just in different trappings.

Syotetsu ni Naro has made it possible for authors to develop their writing chops for decades now. And it’s through this platform that a lot of published light novels with female protagonists hail from. The best titles combine writing conventions unique to the platform with age-old writing sensibilities, then develop their novel’s unique selling point to carry reader interest per chapter.

12 The Tales Of Marielle Clarac

4.0 Novel Updates Scores (88 Votes)

Marielle Clarac is a plain girl to the outside world. Inside, she’s quite a bit of an otaku, a sarcastic observer, and a maniac for cliches and tropes. She’s content with living this double life and would have gone on happily, had the hottest bachelor in the kingdom not proposed to her.

Simeon, the second-in-command of the Royal Order of Knights, is a dreamboat, although Marielle sees him somewhat differently. She loves that he fits her favorite tropes perfectly, and doesn’t care if villainesses are seeking to destroy her.

11 Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook With My Fluffy Friends

4.2 Novel Updates Scores (44 Votes)

The full title of this light novel is a whopper: Since I Was Abandoned After Reincarnating, I Will Cook With My Fluffy Friends: The Figurehead Queen Is Strongest At Her Own Pace. What’s not so complicated is the plot, as Fluffy Friends is all about light-hearted food adventures, with occasional genre conflicts.

Laetitia is a competent main character who is as good at dealing with villainous characters as she is with cooking and baking. Her strong character also becomes a steady rock on which other characters grow out and up. Romance is always on the horizon, and her developing relationship with King Glenreed is syrupy sweet, and slow.

10 The Extraordinary, The Ordinary, And SOAP!

4.4 Novel Updates Scores (181 Votes)

What happens when the protagonist’s power is soap? For Lucia Arca, the answer is an unexpected spot in the hero’s party and a role in stemming world-threatening monster outbreaks.

Poor laundry girl Lucia’s journey in The Extraordinary, the Ordinary, and SOAP! is a feel-good, cutesy, fantasy romance. Her earnest and dopey nature is endearing rather than annoying, a sentiment shared by her romantic interest Celes. Their slow romance is interspersed with soft fantasy adventures and problems generally solved by Lucia’s unique powers.

9 The Girl Who Ate A Death God

4.8 Novel Updates Scores (783 Votes)

The Girl Who Ate a Death God follows Shera, a girl who nearly perished in her burning village. Her hunger drives her to eat the titular death god, who possessed the man who almost raped and killed her. This same yawning hunger, which defined her life of poverty, drives her to use her new monstrous powers to serve an army she has no loyalty to. She can finally feed the void inside her in doing so, and possibly eat with others for the first time in her life.

Death God is writer Nanasawa Matari’s first published work. The work set the tone for Nanasawa’s oeuvre: factions whose actions are never outright black-and-white, morally complex characters, and detailed pages of political maneuvering, war tactics, and world-building.

Fans of Death God may want to look up her other works. The Girl Who Bore the Flame Ring, Hero, Or The Girl Called Monster, and The Girl Who Fell from the Polar Star all deal with girls put into difficult, overpowered scenarios. Some titles, like Hero, focus on character development, while others are textbook-like in their description of military strategies and the world.

8 Your Forma

4.8 Stars (All Volumes, Ave. Amazon Reviews)

Echika Hieda is a brilliant detective who can solve the toughest crimes the digital world has to offer. She can flawlessly dive into Your Forma, a “smart thread” anti-encephalitis system with a 1984-style panopticon surveillance function. The problem is, none of her partners can keep up and have fried their brains trying to do so.

Cheeky android Harold Lucraft seems to be the answer to her problems, though Echika is unenthused. But with the threat of a deadly technovirus looming, Echika must learn to work with Harold before it’s too late.

7 The Otome Heroine’s Fight For Survival

7.63 MAL Score (116 Users)

Alicia loved her family dearly, but the world had other plans. Monsters slaughtered her parents along with her village and an older woman nearly slays her when she escapes. Contact with a crystal bestows Alice with the truth, that she is the protagonist of an otome game.

Angered by her preordainment, Alice takes up arms and the name Aria to carve her own path in life. Becoming the Ash Crowned Princess of Slaughter, Aria fights fate despite circumstances dragging her back into the story.

6 Secrets Of The Silent Witch

7.67 MAL Score (182 Users)

A relatively fresh title, Secrets of the Silent Witch follows the agoraphobic and near-anthropophobic witch Monica Everett. Thought of as one of the Seven Great Sages, Monica is handpicked to become secondborn Prince Felix’s secret bodyguard. The problem is, no one has figured out that the Silent Witch became so out of reclusiveness.

Silent Witch’s strength lies in Monica and the writing itself. Readers can go over plot points quickly and have a good laugh as she acclimates to other people. Her timid personality makes her cool moments stand out all the more in this well-plotted series.

5 Accomplishments Of The Duke’s Daughter

7.81 MAL Score (822 Users)

An accountant is swept into the otome game she was playing following a traffic accident. Much like Katarina Claes, she’s reincarnated as the villainess of the game. But unlike the lovable brawns-for-brains hero of My Next Life as a Villainess, Iris uses her experience from the tax bureau to good use in her new life.

“Exiled” to help her family out, Iris reforms her family’s fief through modern socioeconomic reforms. Yet the “protagonists” of the game she reincarnated in refuse to let her succeed in peace. Iris sets out not only to survive but turn around the fief, all while falling in love with an unexpected suitor.

4 Wandering Witch: The Journey Of Elaina

8.23 MAL Score (1,683 Users)

Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina is another light novel about traveling. What sets the 2016-penned light novel apart is its focus on a fantastical world and its titular character’s feelings throughout her journey. Slice-of-life moments are interspersed with Elaina’s growth and the uniqueness of every location she visits.

However, it doesn’t avoid the dark side of fantasy. Elaina’s talent is belied by her youth and lack of experience, and as such could not help her overturn some grim events she happens upon. Her emotions, what she takes to heart, and how she views the world makes for a series that’s easy and quick to read.

3 Otherside Picnic

8.25 MAL Score (563 Users)

Despite the title, Otherside Picnic is no light stroll in a park. Urban legend enthusiast Sorawo Kamikoshi stumbles into Toriko Nishina, who saves her from drowning in the eponymous Otherside. They explore the strange world where urban legends come to life together out of morbid curiosity, and to look for a missing mentor, in addition to making some pocket change.

The girl’s love light novel vacillates between exploration, the main characters’ growing relationship, and how their journey changes them. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic is a direct influence, and so its overarching plot and theme are always wrapped in sci-fi horror and suspense.

2 Adachi And Shimamura

8.45 MAL Score (2,237 Users)

Adachi and Shimamura only recently finished publication, as well as a complete English translation of all 12 volumes. What sets this sci-fi girl’s love series apart is its close observation of the titular couple’s relationship. Their thoughts are explored in detail in their POV chapters, which allows a complete picture of their relationship to develop.

AdaShima is a slow-burn type of romance that delivers on emotional growth. Adachi and Shimamura read like teenagers fumbling with their newly discovered feelings. But as their romance is pure and chaste, the hormonal side of teenage romances goes unexplored.

1 Kino no Tabi

8.68 MAL Score (2,750 Users)

Kino no Tabi is primarily known for its early 2000s and 2017 anime adaptation and manga versions. Regardless of the form, Kino is defined by its wanderlust-inducing presentation. Readers or viewers are drawn to teen journeywoman Kino and talking motorcycle Hermes’ travels through the world, learning about each country’s customs and tragedies along the way.

On the principle of “The world is not beautiful, therefore it is,” Kino and Hermes observe lives without disrupting the country. For three days, they witness facets of human nature filtered through each country’s customs, philosophy, social and economic realities, and complex moralities. Much like the reader, Kino and Hermes eventually walk away from each country, simmering in their experiences.

Tragically, Tokyopop only managed to publish the first volume of the light novel in English before going under. The rest of the currently 23-volume run is available in Japanese.

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