Javizy Wrote:They just wipe your entire Amazon account and won't listen to excuses or negotiate reactivation. You don't actually own any Kindle books you've paid for - you're just "renting" them - so they'll be wiped from whatever device you sync.

I'm not saying this isn't possible, but if you're referring to the article you linked, then:

Amazon contacted us on 23 October 2012 to say it has posted the following statement on its customer forum: "We would like to clarify our policy on this topic. Account status should not affect any customer's ability to access their library. If any customer has trouble accessing their content, he or she should contact customer service for help."

The woman's account was also reinstated.

Amazon's handling of it has been pretty poor.

rahsoul Wrote:I'm not saying this isn't possible, but if you're referring to the article you linked, then:

Amazon contacted us on 23 October 2012 to say it has posted the following statement on its customer forum: "We would like to clarify our policy on this topic. Account status should not affect any customer's ability to access their library. If any customer has trouble accessing their content, he or she should contact customer service for help."

The woman's account was also reinstated.

Amazon's handling of it has been pretty poor.

That's good, I guess. I've seen a lot of people talking about getting "the e-mail" and stuff getting deleted though. Maybe that's just the "illicit" purchases? Although it could've been an about-face by Amazon, since that article painted them in a very bad light just a day after the tax-dodging article. Not really what they need on the week they release a new tablet.

Finally got kitakitsune's method to work. Have to do his steps for both the JP and US sites. Just bought Hunger Games in Japanese and now downloading the free dictionary. It'll automatically look up words you highlight. This is awesome.

Wow. That's awesome!
Now us RTKers can get the latest novels/manga/books from Japan on the Kindle.

Still not a great selection yet. I think they have less than half the number of books/manga that Rakuten has.

kitakitsune Wrote:Still not a great selection yet. I think they have less than half the number of books/manga that Rakuten has.

Yeah. But you have to start from somewhere.
And Rakuten really screwed up with their e-reader.
The reviews were so bad that Rakuten disabled new reviews (and deleted the old reviews lol).

So Amazon might actually have a chance.
Had Rakuten not screwed up, Amazon would've been toast before they even launched the Kindle.

Well, just for people's info: I successfully merged a newly-created amazon.co.jp account with my existing US amazon.com account when I changed my country setting as suggested (via kindle management). I then setup my purchases with my US credit card for my Japanese account -- no problem. Purchased a Japanese ebook and it went straight from the cloud to my iPod and it works. I can still access all of my US books and things seem good. Daijirin even downloaded and installed. Looks pretty sweet.

K

@kodorakun -- That sounds encouraging!

kitakitsune Wrote:Hi good news everyone

You can shop at the Kindle store at amazon.co.jp from outside Japan.

It's simple. Here's how to do it.

1. Log into your amazon account
2. Click on "your account"
3. Look for "kindle support" on the right hand side
4. Click on "manage my kindle"
5. Look for "your kindle account" on the left
6. Click on "country settings"
7. Change to Japan
8. Follow all the directions about signing up for amazon Japan if you haven't already done that. It will also ask you to consolidate your library. Click yes on that...
9. Go shopping


You don't need a Japanese credit card either.

Thank you! This worked perfectly. I was able to purchase 宇宙兄弟 1 and sync it to the kindle app on my Galaxy Note, which displays it nicely.

kitakitsune Wrote:6. Click on "country settings"
7. Change to Japan

I tried kitakitsune's steps but get stuck on step 6 when changing the country setting to Japan. I'm being asked to enter an address, which looks like needs to be a Japanese address.

Is it possible to change the country to Japan with only a US address, or is everyone that's done this have access to a Japanese address?

The native OSX kindle app still does not appear to support the Japanese books... They show up in my library but I can't open them because the books are "not supported on this device". I don't mind reading on my iPod, so it's not a big deal, but it would be a nice feature and I'm mentioning it as a heads up to those without handheld devices...

Also, are the manga ebooks scans of pages or can you use the dictionary on the text within the speech bubbles?

K.

Make sure your app is updated to the newest version. It was just the last update when Japanese support was added.

And the manga are scans of pages. No dictionary support for manga

Yeah, my OSX kindle app is up-to-date, as is my iPod, but the japanese ebook only reads on the iPod and not the desktop app. But whatever, I'm fine with this for now, I actually prefer reading on my iPod.

rehlee Wrote:

kitakitsune Wrote:6. Click on "country settings"
7. Change to Japan

I tried kitakitsune's steps but get stuck on step 6 when changing the country setting to Japan. I'm being asked to enter an address, which looks like needs to be a Japanese address.

Is it possible to change the country to Japan with only a US address, or is everyone that's done this have access to a Japanese address?

I just used a fake street address with city as Tokyo and postal code as 100-8799, it worked fine.

Does anyone know if there's anyway to get the updated Japanese support for an actual kindle? And has anyone tried reading Japanese books on a kindle rather than a kindle app?

I think I will be getting this for the holiday season coming up or I might wait till I actually know if I have passed or not. So still got a lot of time to go for that of course. N1 of course

Splatted Wrote:Does anyone know if there's anyway to get the updated Japanese support for an actual kindle? And has anyone tried reading Japanese books on a kindle rather than a kindle app?

Looks like it has to be a Kindle Paperwhite or the new Kindle Fire to support the Japanese text. I tried with my Kindle Touch after linking my US and JP amazon accounts, but it would only let me send books to either my iPad or android Kindle apps.

Unfortunately the Kindle Paperwhite is on back order for at least 5 weeks in the US, but I would imagine it would work once you register it with your amazon account.

rehlee Wrote:

Splatted Wrote:Does anyone know if there's anyway to get the updated Japanese support for an actual kindle? And has anyone tried reading Japanese books on a kindle rather than a kindle app?

Looks like it has to be a Kindle Paperwhite or the new Kindle Fire to support the Japanese text. I tried with my Kindle Touch after linking my US and JP amazon accounts, but it would only let me send books to either my iPad or android Kindle apps.

Unfortunately the Kindle Paperwhite is on back order for at least 5 weeks in the US, but I would imagine it would work once you register it with your amazon account.

That sucks. Thanks for telling me.

Reading Japanese books on Kindle Android app:
http://[video=youtube]http://www.youtube...LE[/video]

A quick question.

Do I have to buy a Japanese Kindle Paperwhite?
Or is it OK if I get the American paperwhite and link the accounts?

Also, does the Paperwhite 3G include WiFi functionality?
Thanks.

The Japanese kindle Store has a decent catalog of light novels.
Link:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0?...2450063051

I noticed that they carried the "boku wa tomodachi ga sukinai".

You can find some samples pages from the novel-based iPhone app here:
http://www.appbank.net/2012/06/28/iphone...433952.php

chamcham Wrote:Do I have to buy a Japanese Kindle Paperwhite?
Or is it OK if I get the American paperwhite and link the accounts?

Also, does the Paperwhite 3G include WiFi functionality?
Thanks.

I'm 95% sure that a US Kindle Paperwhite will be able to read ebooks from the Japanese Amazon store, as both look the same spec-wise with Japanese language support.

The 3G version always includes wi-fi as well, and the chart on the 3G's Amazon page confirms it.

chamcham Wrote:The Japanese kindle Store has a decent catalog of light novels.
Link:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0 … 2450063051[/url]

I'm kinda curious as to what the exact classification of Light Novel is. Hyouka, for example, is called a Light Novel, but is listed in the normal literature section. The only thing I can see is that the LNs in the Light Novel section are more serialized.

Question, has anyone gotten the English to Japanese dictionary working on either the Android or iPad Kindle apps? I can get J-J, but J-E doesn't seem to be an option.

rehlee Wrote:I'm kinda curious as to what the exact classification of Light Novel is. Hyouka, for example, is called a Light Novel, but is listed in the normal literature section. The only thing I can see is that the LNs in the Light Novel section are more serialized.

Some bits from the wikipedia entry for "light novel" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_novel):

"A light novel (ライトノベル raito noberu?) is a style of Japanese novel primarily targeting middle and high school students (young adult demographic).[1][verification needed] "Light novel" is a wasei-eigo, or a Japanese term formed from words in the English language. Such short, light novels are often called ranobe (ラノベ?)[2] or LN in the West. They are typically not more than 40,000–50,000 words long (the shorter ones being equivalent to a novella in US publishing terms), rarely exceed 200 pages, often have dense publishing schedules, are usually published in bunkobon size, and are often illustrated.[3] The text is often serialized in anthology magazines before collection in book form."

There are actually many serial light novel magazines in Japan.
Every issue offers a new chapter in each of the published series.

Links are here:
http://lightnovel.org/magazines

rehlee Wrote:

chamcham Wrote:The Japanese kindle Store has a decent catalog of light novels.
Link:
http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0 … 2450063051[/url]

I'm kinda curious as to what the exact classification of Light Novel is. Hyouka, for example, is called a Light Novel, but is listed in the normal literature section. The only thing I can see is that the LNs in the Light Novel section are more serialized.

The only real definition of light novel which applies 100% of the time is "a book published under a light novel publishing label". They generally have anime-style illustrations (but not always.) And some light novels get really popular and are republished without the illustrations, but with the same content. For example, this and this are the same book. Oh, and Hyouka is a regular novel, not a light novel, since it's not published under a light novel publishing label.

Bokusenou Wrote:The only real definition of light novel which applies 100% of the time is "a book published under a light novel publishing label". They generally have anime-style illustrations (but not always.) And some light novels get really popular and are republished without the illustrations, but with the same content. For example, this and this are the same book. Oh, and Hyouka is a regular novel, not a light novel, since it's not published under a light novel publishing label.

Hmm, looks like I misread the Hyouka wikipedia article, swore it said light novel, not mystery novel. That makes a lot more sense in how the Hyouka anime had significantly less anime-ish tropes than typical Light Novel adaptations.

Amazon's LN catalog is indeed pretty impressive. Once I figure out how to get the JP-EN dictionary working, I'll start making time to read them. Though I might have an easier time with some manga first.