I’m trying to limit my physical buys since they’re more expensive and definitely more of a pain to run through with a dictionary, etc. Just wondering where the best places to buy for my use cases are?
Main thing is I need to be able to convert novel files to ePubs to load on my phone (Kiwi + Yomichan). As for manga, as long as I can load it on a PC and zoom in on the text that’ll be fine (surprisingly this can be a bit of a pain in various browser readers).
Amazon.jp was doing okay for me with Calibur to rip/convert novels (well, the one novel I’m trying this with) but their bloody region-locking stuff has popped up now. I can get around it easily enough with a VPN for the moment, but it’s bloody annoying that I have to even do that when I’m trying to do things the legit way, so thinking of looking elsewhere.
How’s Bookwalker? I’ve never understood any of these coin promo things, but now might be a good time to start.
Granted there’s also discussion about physical but there’s also plenty of digital discussions as well.
I use AmazonJP even if they lock me out sometimes, due to the fact that I can get the books in the format I want easily. I’m not sure with Bookwalker you can do that due to their DRM.
BW is not rippable (for normal people). Coins are OP, though. If there is a coin event and the 1st time buyer bonus, you can basically buy one, get one free. (Also, if you like LNs, the yomihoudai is pretty nice.)
Rakuten books is rippable and doesn’t have issues with VPN and stuff. (Though some people can’t use their credit card. Revolut is a work around for that.) But also no coins.
Kindle Unlimited, like Audible JP has a credit card region check which is hard to bypass.
Some foreigner cards work, but I haven’t found one available to me.
I use a Polish (Europe) card and no issues here. I did set my address to a random Japanese address though. Vpn while purchasing/processing the payment also helps.
What is worth mentioning is that I set up a separate account for my Kindle / Audible purchases, on a different email address and attached a different card than my main account (which I use for regular orders that need shipping).
Visa in the past, currenlty DinersClub. (Austrian issuer) My japanese account uses the same e-mail as my german and american accounts, but I also used a random japanese address.
Kobo is nice, as long as your account is registered with a Japanese IP it never bother you again after.
Sometimes the prices are a bit higher than Kindle, and more rarely a bit lower though.
That’s what I have and use to do de-DRM. Even if it’s still working for now (haven’t bought anything published this year to test it), I wouldn’t be surprised if it also eventually stops working.
Same. I download everything I purchase from Amazon to have copies that I actually own and control. For actual novels / LNs, I also convert them to HTML which I use for gathering words to study and also just to occasionally reference.
If that functionality gets blocked I honestly don’t know what I’ll do. I won’t go to Bookwalker since their ecosystem (in terms of ownership) is even worse, but maybe there’s something better out there.
Last time I logged in to my Japanese account on the Kobo app (not the site), I needed to set my VPN to Japan, but I tried it again just now and didn’t need to do so. I’ve also purchased books multiple times this week without using a VPN and had no issues. So if they’re starting to region-lock, it’s very inconsistent.
