I don't think the community is big enough to go a second year with the full nominee/vote route. And it seems like we even have less active members here than last year. So let's just post our personal light novels of the year and some come up on multiple lists that's the official winner for 2025.

Categories are:

Best Volume
Best Debut
Best Protagonist
Best Antagonist
Best Supporting Character
Best Couple or Duo
Best Author
Best Illustrator
Best Worldbuilding
Best Overall Series
Best Emotional Moment

And since it's YOUR list you can even add as many categories as you like. Neat.

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[–] NineSwords@ani.social 2 points 4 months ago

Best Volume : Zilbagias the Demon Prince: How the Seventh Prince Brought Down the Kingdom - Volume 5

Love the internal struggle of MC.

Best Debut : The Accursed Chef and His Pair of Furry Foodies

The new series from Yuu Tanaka of Sword Tensei fame.

Best Protagonist: Devil Princess Yulucia from "The Devil Princess"

I have a thing for main characters that aren't shackled by fake morality (you know the type that kills 1000 underlings without a thought but then is too "good" to kill the actual boss pulling their strings). And this year there wasn't a character more ruthless than sweet Yulucia.

Best Antagonist: The human heroes in Zilbagias the Demon Prince

Even if I were to disregard the whole flipped good/evil plot and just look at them as a counter to MC they are still written with a clear motivation and individual personalities that stay consistent.

Best Supporting Character: Louis (Secrets of the Silent Witch)

Got even his own spin-off. He's that good.

Best Couple or Duo: Ai-Fa and Asuta (Cooking With Wild Game)

As always.

Best Author: Matsuri Isora (Secrets of the Silent Witch)

Clearly written like Ascendance of a Bookworm with a clear outline of the entire plot already laid out.

Best Worldbuilding: The world of Ascendance of a Bookworm

My favorite light novel world got fleshed out more in the Hannelore spin-off series.

Best Overall Series: Cooking With Wild Game

Even though many of this year's volumes were an arc that I didn't like very much it's still consistently great to read and every volume is a highlight for me. Silent Witch is getting there.

Best Emotional Moment: The opening to "Welcome to Monstrous Miss Sophie’s Enchanted Salon of Healing"

Not going to spoil it, but man... God damn it man.

I don't think I've seen anything this year that clearly stood out for the Illustration award, so I pass this one.