On Halloween, J-Novel Club announced two new horror light novel licenses for their online service:

• Yume Nikki: I Am Not in Your Dream, written by Akira and illustrated by Aco Arisaka

Based on the cult hit game, the novelization of Yume Nikki follows a lonesome girl into the bizarre dreamscapes that await her when she falls asleep. Opening doors and wandering aimlessly, is she really as alone as she thinks?

• Ao Oni, written by Kenji Kuroda and illustrated by Karin Suzuragi

Shun is the new kid in school, but he's already managed to attract the attention of the school bully, who's now making his life a living hell. It doesn't seem like things could get any worse, until the night he finds himself and a group of his classmates inside a creepy, abandoned mansion known as the Jailhouse. They quickly start to hear strange sounds and see weird things, but everything escalates when they realize they can't get out. Once they're trapped inside, a blue, unnaturally large figure chases after them. Is it a new species? Or is it the ghost of their old classmate who died in an accident? Nobody knows, but one thing is for certain… If it catches them, they're dead! The scariest game of tag in history begins!

Content for each is already available for J-Novel Club members to read–and if you're not a member yet, it sounds like you can still try out the first 40 pages for free. Both titles are from the Japanese publisher PHP Institute. Ebooks should release in English in early 2018.

Personally, I am really excited for these two light novels, and am just as surprised that they were brought over for release in English. I’ve been a fan of the games these two stories are based on for quite a few years now, and made sure to pick up these tie-in books while I lived in Japan. You can even go back to Halloween 2014 here on this site to see some pictures I took of the Japanese horror light novels I bought.

And now I’ll finally be able to read these! Thanks, J-Novel Club.

You don’t need to have played the games in order to enjoy these books, but if you’re curious you can try them both out for free in English. Most any computer should be able to run them. You can find the latest version of Ao Oni here, and the latest version of Yume Nikki here.

Ao Oni means Blue Demon, and refers to a monster that at times chases your character from room to room in an abandoned mansion. You must solve some puzzles in order to progress, and you must not be caught by the monster. It will eat you.

Yume Nikki means Dream Diary, and is a game in which your character wanders through a variety of imaginative and ominous dream worlds. It is an unusual game in that the main point is just to explore and interpret the dreams however you wish. It’s probably my favorite video game, and has really stuck with me over the years.