Which series from the Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! rankings might ACTUALLY get an anime adaptation?

Upon seeing ANN’s recent article based on a ddnavi blog post* that looked at Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi rankings to try to predict what light novels would receive an anime adaptation in the future, one thing stuck in my mind: Why did they use 2008-2011?

After all, all four of the series which are listed as not yet having an anime adaptation ended several years ago. While it isn’t (quite) unheard of for a light novel series to get an anime several years after the last volume came out, it is very unusual and thus it would make far more sense to label these series as “good series that never got an anime” rather than “series that could get an anime next”. Indeed, the chance of any of them ever getting an anime are slim to none. There’s a reason why in my previous article using sales figures to look at things with a chance of an anime adaptation I eliminated all series that had finished publishing.

So, given that the 2008-2011 data doesn’t give us anything to work with at all, I decided to look at the same rankings for the last four years to see if I could make things out from that instead.

The data in question looks at the top 10 series ONLY (something which ANN doesn’t bother to mention) and lists every series that got into the top 10 in any of those years in title order (another thing that ANN neglects, making it look like a series that came 7th once is #1 on the list somehow). So I have done a similar thing for 2012-2015’s top 10s, except that this list is ordered by rank this year, then rank last year etc. within the top 10:

Yahari Ore no Seishun Love-Come wa Machigatteiru
Sword Art Online
No Game No Life
Toaru Majutsu no Index
Koukyuu Rakuen Kyoujou
Zetsushinkai no Solaris
Escape Speed
Toaru Hikuushi e no Seiyaku
Kono Koi to, Sono Mirai.
Tenkyou no Alderamin
Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou Ka
Hataraku Maou-sama!
Tokyo Ravens
Rokka no Yuusha
Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai
Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu
Durarara!!
Shinonome Yuuko series
Sakurada Reset
Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon
Enkan Shoujo/Circlet Girl
Occulto Logical
Suzumiya Haruhi Series
Ido-Lising!
Ame no Hi no Iris

Series that are in bold do not have anime adaptations or anime announced. Series that are struck through have finished. Thus those that are in bold and which are not struckthrough are the ones that don’t have anime adaptations but which are still ongoing and thus might see them in the future.

It’s worth noting, however, that Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! rankings are a poor measure of which series will or will not get anime adaptations, as it is relatively easy for a series to get high up on the rankings without having a notable fanbase (Koukyuu Rakuen Kyoujou’s second volume failed to make last week’s sales rankings despite the first volume having put it in 5th for last year’s KonoRano rankings), or without having the longevity that is usually required for an anime adaptation (Ame no Hi no Iris, for example, was just a single volume).

Tenkyou no Alderamin is incidentally the only series on the list to have made it into the top 10 twice in the past 4 years but not have had an anime adaptation announced/made yet.

*Not a Yaraon one, which is what they claimed as the source, and certainly not from Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! itself, which the title of ANN’s article seems to suggest. Yet another case of extremely shoddy journalism from ANN.