Do you import Japanese light novels? If yes, what service do you usually use to purchase them?
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@chrollo said in Do you import Japanese light novels? If yes, what service do you usually use to purchase them?:
@phione I have heard of honto. The seamail option does seem to be by far the cheapest way to import from Japan. Have you had to deal with their customer support? I know the whole website is in Japanese only.
I've seen the estimates for arrival are 1-3 months for seamail, would you say it's accurate?
Yes, customer service is in Japanese only, unfortunately. You can, however, write them in English, but they'll only reply in Japanese. I've only had to contact their customer service maybe once since the merger (it was called BK1 before their merger to create Honto in 2012).
As for the speed of seamail. THE longest I had to wait was 2 months. It's usually 4 to 6 weeks from my experience.
So again, if you're looking for really safe and fast way of buying Japanese books, and that you'd prefer english customer support, just stick with Amazon.jp or Kinokuniya. However, if you spend a lot on Japanese books each year (I spend about 1000+ usd a year), and wants to save some money in the long run, I'd really suggest you to give Honto a try.
Just for reference, I bought Ascendence of a Bookworm 2nd Arc Vol. 2 from Honto about 2 years ago, and was charged 1630 jpy after shipping, a bit less than 15 usd (this doesn't include the 3% off coupon I used with the order though =p). Kino's listing price is 20 usd, and you'd have to buy more than 50 usd for free shipping.
P.S. I almost forgot to mention that if you buy physical books from Honto, you'd get 50% off on the ebook version.
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@phione said in Do you import Japanese light novels? If yes, what service do you usually use to purchase them?:
@chrollo said in Do you import Japanese light novels? If yes, what service do you usually use to purchase them?:
@phione I have heard of honto. The seamail option does seem to be by far the cheapest way to import from Japan. Have you had to deal with their customer support? I know the whole website is in Japanese only.
I've seen the estimates for arrival are 1-3 months for seamail, would you say it's accurate?
Yes, customer service is in Japanese only, unfortunately. You can, however, write them in English, but they'll only reply in Japanese. I've only had to contact their customer service maybe once since the merger (it was called BK1 before their merger to create Honto in 2012).
As for the speed of seamail. THE longest I had to wait was 2 months. It's usually 4 to 6 weeks from my experience.
So again, if you're looking for really safe and fast way of buying Japanese books, and that you'd prefer english customer support, just stick with Amazon.jp or Kinokuniya. However, if you spend a lot on Japanese books each year (I spend about 1000+ usd a year), and wants to save some money in the long run, I'd really suggest you to give Honto a try.
Just for reference, I bought Ascendence of a Bookworm 2nd Arc Vol. 2 from Honto about 2 years ago, and was charged 1630 jpy after shipping, a bit less than 15 usd (this doesn't include the 3% off coupon I used with the order though =p). Kino's listing price is 20 usd, and you'd have to buy more than 50 usd for free shipping.
P.S. I almost forgot to mention that if you buy physical books from Honto, you'd get 50% off on the ebook version.
Thanks for the info!
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Man, there used to be a Kinokuniya ten minutes from my apartment in Orange County, so so bummed when it closed. Then this year my favorite Japanese tea supplier shut down its American options, the slow decline of physical retail spaces is depressing. Honestly, there’s almost no stores in the OC that I’m interested in anymore beyond Barnes and Noble and Games Workshop stores.
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@santi-brathana said in Do you import Japanese light novels? If yes, what service do you usually use to purchase them?:
@chrollo May I ask you what level of Japanese reading skill you at currently at?
If it already around upper intermediate then print is fine.But if you're just starting out then i'd strongly advise against print, and opt for digital instead (unless ofcouse, prints really motivate you so much that they outweigh] digital's benefit)
It's because when you buy digital i.e from Amazon or Kobo , you can strip drm and then use Add-on like https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/yomichan/ogmnaimimemjmbakcfefmnahgdfhfami So the dictionary pops up when you mouse hover over the unknown words. Physical books however means you have to type the unknown words manually and that's really hard if kanji is included.
Then again , If you're either 1.already really proficient in Japanese 2. Really Really likes Physical Collections that it'd motivate you despite the hardship in looking up words. That Physical is fine. or else digital is the way to go
I'd second this. You can use calibre and the DeDRM plugin by Apprentice Alf to strip drm and change it to epub or something. Then you can rename that as zip file (not actually compress, since an epub is essentially already a zipped set of html files and style sheets) and then decompress it and load the html files in the resulting folder into a browser. For my browser plugin, I use rikaichamp since I'm on firefox, but there should be some version of rikai or similar for whatever browser you use.
I haven't had the time to finish reading anything since I just discovered this and I've been really busy this semester, but I've got volume one of Kino's Journey （キノの旅）set up and it's so much easier than manual lookup for everything or even lookup on a kindle.
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@the-green-death said in Do you import Japanese light novels? If yes, what service do you usually use to purchase them?:
Man, there used to be a Kinokuniya ten minutes from my apartment in Orange County, so so bummed when it closed. Then this year my favorite Japanese tea supplier shut down its American options, the slow decline of physical retail spaces is depressing. Honestly, there’s almost no stores in the OC that I’m interested in anymore beyond Barnes and Noble and Games Workshop stores.
I still remember I used to order my books from SasugaBooks (based in Cambridge, Massachusetts) roughly 10-20 years ago, and even visited their booth at Anime Weekend Atlanta... They closed for good in 2010 I think, and I had to switch over to amazon and bk1 (which became Honto).
Anyway, if there's a Kinokuniya in Atlanta, I'd definitely visit there like at least once a week... Alas, it wasn't meant to be.
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Ok so possibly silly question, where can I purchase the Japanese version of the light novels? I think i want to use the series to learn to read Japanese. Starting from vol 1 part 1 of course :D This series is inspiring to say the least.
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Hello I have moved your post from the Bookworm topic to here.
You may be able to find the answer in this topic p, otherwise someone will hopefully be able to give you an answer.
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@Willowrose The first page lists a number of responses. I still use Amazon Japan and eBay, but Amazon has increased the shipping from 950 to 1300 or more yen per 700 yen book...
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@Willowrose just buy ebooks on amazon
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I looked on Amazon but can only find the English version of the series I am after, unless I am way doing this wrong.
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Here is V1 on Amazon JP
Edit: I believe they are also doing some kind of reprint under the To Books Junior label?
Hopefully @hiroto could shed some more light on that, is the new To Junior Label reprint easier to read, or simplified in anyway?
Sorry but J-Novel Club does not publicly comment on any potential licensing decision or acquisitions.
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Ahhh thank you!!! It only ever showed me english version on Taj Amazon.jp site before.
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@Rahul-Balaggan
The junior edition is a version with furigana so it's easier for younger people to read it.
Compare the preview of the Junior edition (https://viewer-trial.bookwalker.jp/03/8/viewer.html?cid=6050829d-228d-4b38-904d-dba1a397d1e9&cty=0) to the regular version (https://viewer-trial.bookwalker.jp/03/8/viewer.html?cid=dc74df88-0644-445b-a652-ae1f60d999db&cty=0).
Each Junior edition is half the size of a regular edition, so while they have volume four coming out in June that's still only Part 1. They also have more illustrations than the regular edition, for example in the second Junior edition there is an illustration where the kids are hunting shumils in one of the side stories form the first (regular) volume. In the first regular volume there were 09 black and white illustrations, while in the first two junior editions (which covered the same story content) there were 11+8=19 black and white illustrations, furthermore the junior editions have little manga pages at the end which is something we only see in the regular editions from volume 7 onward. -
In that case to me, it seems like the junior edition would be the better one to get for people who are starting to learn Japanese.
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@SomeOldGuy This has gotten really annoying lately. I've still got all my recent purchases for the old price, but in future I will only order in bulk. It simply isn't worth it anymore to buy only one, or two books.
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@Clarabelle There's sort of a sweet spot around 10 volumes, I think. Since the first book has way higher shipping costs than the first one, ten books is about where additional books stop making much difference. And once I had 14 books on an order and they didn't use any plastic wrap, so the stacks were loose in the box and a few were damaged. This has made me gunshy about ordering too many at a time...
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@doceirias I don't care that much about damaged books, I'm not that hard of a collector. I already got a few damaged books (the obis are nearly each time in tatters, but so what, I don't need them), but since I don't handle my books with kid gloves (you really need to see my oldest manga, a true collector would drop dead from seeing it) I'm not that worried about it. Quite some time ago I cared about this, but now I can only laugh while looking back at it.
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@Clarabelle I'm not talking mangled obi (those are garbage anyway, I take 'em off and throw them away the second I unpack) but straight up covers folded in half and pages mangled.
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@doceirias I've experienced this too, but like I've already said, a true collector would probably scream, but to me it's enough to own them. Of course, if there are pages completly ripped through it's another matter, but I can live with small tears on the pages and folds in the cover, or in the whole book (each time I managed to straight them out again).
I've seen far worse in my local bookstores, you don't believe what they sell as new. I simply had no other choice than becoming tolerant to such matters. Either I want them, or I don't. -
@SomeOldGuy Out of curiosity, does bookstoron also create auctions for books out of print/used, if you ask them? There are some books I really want, but unfortunately you can’t get them new anymore and so far, I haven’t found any auctions for them.
