How do you buy your books?

The only con to thriftbooks is that it often takes a long time for the book to pop up in a Japanese translation. Or at least, that’s been the case for everything on my wishlist.

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I buy a mix of physical and digital.

For digital I use Amazon Japan. They have a vast library and it’s really easy to use. I remember having to use a VPN literally one time several years ago, and I had to put in a random Japanese address, but once you set it up once there’s no hassle. Also, it’s easy to remove the DRM using Calibre if you want to feel like you actually own what you bought. I exclusively buy novels / light novels this way so that I have easy dictionary access via my Kindle Paperwhite, but I also convert them to HTML format so I can more easily make flashcards in Kitsun. I also buy some digital manga, particularly when there are good sales.

I do still buy some physical manga a few times a year, for which I use CDJapan. I used to use Amazon Japan for that, but I had multiple bad experiences with them not securing the books at all (literally just thrown into the box), resulting in bent corners and torn obi. What finally pushed me to make the switch to CDJapan was when I wanted to buy ご注文はうさぎですか Complete Blend. One of the main things I insist on buying physically as much as possible is Manga Time Kirara series, because they use really high quality / thick A5 paper, which is better quality and bigger than typical manga (in my experience at least). ご注文はうさぎですか Complete Blend, essentially being a masterpiece edition of my favorite manga series, instead uses B5 paper (original size from the magazine) with dozens of color pages, and let’s just say I was NOT willing to put that to chance with Amazon Japan. CDJapan packaged that (and everything else) perfectly and I had a good experience with subsequent shipments as well, so I’m never going back to Amazon Japan for physical books.

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First time I heard of CDJapan but I looked on their site and they had a ton of stuff that I’ve been wanting and seems a lot easier to order stuff there compared to Amazon. Thanks for mentioning them, I just placed an order now :joy:

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Physical: don’t have many, but I got two from Amazon US and two from Kinokuniya (as in the physical location, not online, so idk about shipping). I unfortunately don’t live near a place that sells Japanese books so I usually buy digital. I want to buy more physical books though so this thread is a great reference!!

Digital: I use Bookwalker! I like it for the most part, but I’ve noticed furigana tends to be blurry. btw, if you also buy books on Bookwalker, I highly recommend checking out The BookWalker Freebies Thread on the Wanikani forums. I’ve picked up a lot of free books that way

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Also, if you are using Booklive, books that are free (or discounted) on Bookwalker will also be free (or discounted) there.

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I also check bookwalker everyday and mark all the Natively books that are free, but it usually only comprises a small portion of the free books. :slight_smile:

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Amazon Japan, but I used to use Apple Books before using TTU/Yomichan. I’ll rarely buy physical books – no lookups and they take up space.

Hopefully, I’ll either keep hold of one debit/credit card when I leave Japan or just pick up a couple of 1万円 gift cards from the conbini.

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If you have a credit card/debit card issued from a major issuer (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) you won’t need a Japanese card. I’m not sure how many of the other sites allow you to use Paypal and LINE pay, though, because those are also always options.

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There are banks that issue JCBs overseas.
Mine used to, and I was able to bypass a lot of locks with it, including JP iTunes.

Might be worth looking into, if you need an accepted payment method for some locked sites.

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Before my country got weird with imports:
mostly physical:

  • bookoff (while in Japan)
  • honto.jp
  • kinokuniya.jp
  • yahoo auctions (via fromjapan proxy)
  • mandarake (for Manga)

After my country got weird with imports:
electronically only:

  • amazon.jp (vpn, baby!)
  • audible.jp (though recently, I have noticed more Japanese releases on my local audible as well :thinking:)
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Amazon JP for physicals and ebooks!
I’m always amazed at how it arrives in 2 weeks at most, I live completely accross the globe haha the shipping usually stays at about 2000 yen and there’s a 10% tax from my credit card, so I rarely buy anything.
It’s still cheaper and faster than buying at specialized national bookstores that import books tho. Apparently it’s not legal to import used books in my country so I can only buy new.

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That’s wild to me. :exploding_head:

I don’t know if this is also a country specific thing or not, but for myself (in America) some credit cards will charge international transaction fees (which can indeed be quite high!) and others do not. I actually specifically sought out cards without such fees and only have one that has them and I kick myself whenever I accidentally use it for something not local.

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i mostly buy ebooks from Amazon Japan - you don’t need a Japanese credit card, but i don’t remember if you need a vpn or a japanese address (i think i put my company’s japanese address lmao), and i use vpn all the time anyway. i prefer amazon because i can, actually, download the book on my computer, remove the drm, and put it on my ebook reader of choice.

…which is a kindle anyway, but it’s registered with the american account, so i can’t import ebooks from the japanese account onto it. most other sites like bookwalker or cmoa only allow you to read on their website or their app, and personally if i own something, i want to be able to keep it on my hard drive.

i prefer physical books but importing those is expensive, so most physicals i have i bought while i was in Japan, or was gifted by other people. usually if anyone in my friend group, or someone they know, is planning on visiting japan, they ask for a combined shoplist from everyone and get things that way.

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That is genuinely the only reason why I have a love-hate relationship with cmoa…though if you know how to run codes, there is a way.

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maybe someday when i actually do learn some coding as i’ve been meaning to do i will use cmoa more often lmao

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This is pretty much what I do, minus the flashcard part, because I’m too lazy for that. I buy my Japanese ebooks on Amazon JP, download them with the Kindle for PC app, de-DRM them and convert them to HTML with Calibre. Then I read them in my browser where I use the 10ten plugin that provides a dictionary that displays English translations whenever you hover over an unknown Japanese word with your mouse.

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When I buy physical ones I use Manga Republic. Free shipping, and very very well packaged.

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I am not a fan of digital books only because I get so distracted when I’m online (I am open to hearing out a good eReader for reading Japanese Manga in), so I buy physical.

I used to buy a handful online, and then I learned I was within reasonable driving distance of a US Kinokuniya. I have such a stack of manga that I’m slowly going through and spend too much money each time I go. I have no regrets.

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I use a cheap android tablet. It literally only has the stuff on it, I need for reading. (I.e. no distractions) For manga, I use the OCR Manga Reader, which is great. For ebooks, I use kiwi browser with ttu and yomichan. :+1:t2:

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Same here. Super cheapo Android tablet with (almost) literally just the Kindle app and a dictionary installed.

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