ta12121 Wrote:When you guys say "Gaijin credit card" are you referring to your credit cards from your home country. I.e. if you live in the U.S., would it work with amazon.jp? I live in Canada, so I'm not sure if my credit would work. I could just get an international credit card and buy stuff from amazon.jp. Then again, the shipping would be deadly (anyway around this?)

The cheapest way I've found to get Japanese books if you live in Canada is to go through http://www.bk1.jp

You can choose what level of shipping you want to pay for, unlike Amazon.jp, which automatically charges for fast shipping. I used to order about $100 worth of books at a time and just get them shipped really slowly. The shipping's still expensive, but it's the best alternative I've found. And they do accept credit cards from outside Japan.

I've used bk1 as well and would recommend it. They regularly e-mail you a 300円ギフト券 as well, which would be pretty good if you didn't have to factor in shipping costs.

Since Amazon.jp has so many cheap used books, I tend to order from there now and get someone to send me them. I got a few for 1円 plus shipping, which is 250円 per book or so I think. It's a good option if you have it.

@Javizy Do you have any problems paying for books in the Amazon marketplace with a foreign credit card, or do you have your friend buy them for you?

If not, then I may go that route, and just have them shipped to PakMail in Nagoya and have them ship it all to me SAL. I've worked with them before, and they're pretty nice folks. (Although I suppose anybody is nice if you're paying them. XD )

EDIT: Generally, when I buy new books, I use BK1 and SAL, because it's cheaper and less hassle... but if I can get some good deals on the marketplace... >_>a

Is bk1.jp also good for shipping to U.S.? Or is there a better alternative?

rich_f Wrote:@Javizy Do you have any problems paying for books in the Amazon marketplace with a foreign credit card, or do you have your friend buy them for you?

Foreign cards are accepted on Amazon. I made my account a couple of years ago. That's how I assumed I'd be able to buy books from the Kindle store and probably have to mess around logging in and out to access books from my UK account. I'm not sure what will actually be possible with the Kindle, but it seems less and less likely that it's going to be convenient.

Javizy Wrote:

rich_f Wrote:@Javizy Do you have any problems paying for books in the Amazon marketplace with a foreign credit card, or do you have your friend buy them for you?

Foreign cards are accepted on Amazon. I made my account a couple of years ago. That's how I assumed I'd be able to buy books from the Kindle store and probably have to mess around logging in and out to access books from my UK account. I'm not sure what will actually be possible with the Kindle, but it seems less and less likely that it's going to be convenient.

Do you have information that's not been posted here? What's making you think the kindle store won't be as easy to access as the rest of amazon Japan?

Thanks for the info about the Amazon marketplace. I've used the regular amazon.co.jp a lot, but I've never used the marketplace, and didn't know if different rules applied there. Just wanted to make sure.

TheVinster Wrote:Is bk1.jp also good for shipping to U.S.? Or is there a better alternative?

bk1 is awesome for shipping to the US, because you get all kinds of choices, unlike Amazon. You can choose from EMS, FedEX, AirMail, SAL, and Surface. I prefer SAL, because it's cheap. EMS and FedEX are both crazy expensive, and AirMail is only slightly less expensive (but useful in a pinch.)

Main downside with bk1 is that they don't tell you the shipping cost until they ship it. So you can't back out if the shipping is too expensive.

My rule of thumb is that EMS/FedEx will cost 50% of my total, AirMail 35-40%, SAL 25-30%, Surface 10-15%. But that's really rough. Book weight can vary.

Here's a link to the Help Page that links to the various tables to look up the cost of shipping using the various services:

http://www.bk1.jp/docs/help/He_e04

EDIT: actually, bk1 isn't always cheaper. There are probably times where using Amazon's marketplace and a friend to ship things to you might be a lot cheaper, or even using straight up Amazon might also be cheaper, if you're in a hurry. But if you're just buying a few new books and shipping them SAL, then yes, bk1 is usually cheaper.

Hmm... can someone with math skills figure this out? XD

Here's a good article:
http://mangahelpers.com/forum/showthread...nga-online

For Kinokuniya shipping rates, go here (scroll down to #7):
http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/ohb/02/f...iyou_2.htm

I wonder why the US Kinokuniya website is the only one that looks like complete and utter crap...

edit: Taiwan's looks like crap therefore the US one is complete crap.

Once you get used to it, it's not too bad. I only use the search form anyway, and I only search by ISBN numbers, because otherwise it's troublesome to try to find what I want.

Also, there's not point in using US Kino for stuff that's *just* come out. It's only good for things 4-8 weeks old or older. (And wait for the confirmation email... they may not actually have it in inventory.)

The prices are also a bit jacked up, reflecting the cost of shipping to the US and the bad exchange rate. One good thing about the US Kino site is that if you order $100+ of books, you get free shipping. Bad thing: it's pretty easy to hit that $100.

Yeah I recently ordered something from them. I thought they didn't have what I was looking for months ago because their search feature sucks(I could have used the ISBN advice way earlier lol).

Ｏｎｅ　Ｐｉｅｃｅ =/= One Piece in their American search engine. And of course its Ｏｎｅ　Ｐｉｅｃｅ in their database.

I actually thought their prices were decent for the speed(5 days), compared to my other options.

blackbrich Wrote:Ｏｎｅ　Ｐｉｅｃｅ =/= One Piece in their American search engine. And of course its Ｏｎｅ　Ｐｉｅｃｅ in their database.

This is because they are different characters - if you care to look at the source HTML you will find that:

"@#65327;@#65358;@#65349;@#12288;@#65328;@#65353;@#65349;@#65347;@#65349; =/= One Piece"

Note:
'@' represents '&' but I don't know how to prevent '@#xxxxx' codes from parsing into readable characters.

Ｔｈｉｓ　ｔｙｐｉｃａｌｌｙ　ｈａｐｐｅｎｓ　ｗｈｅｎ　ｙｏｕ　ｔｙｐｅ　ｉｎ　ｒｏｍａｊｉ　ｗｉｔｈ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　ｉｎｐｕｔ　ｏｎ．

Hyperborea Wrote:Both of these are signs of stupid and/or lazy programmers.

They simply took Larry Wall's advice to the extreme (sarcasm):

Quote:We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris.

Actually, I find string processing one of the most boring things I can do these days. At times it looks like you have to deal with problems that are 20-30 years old

Yeah I knew they were different, but I also knew it could have been taken care of. Like they did on the Japan site and I believe every other regional site.

Edit: After just checking, it seems they have finally taken care of it on USA site... Woulda been helpful months ago.

Generally, I look for books first on Amazon.co.jp, because they have the best search, and will usually have the best info. Just grab the ISBN number and you can pretty much find it on any site, no matter how bad it is. (Okay, there are *some* exceptions...)

I've noticed that bk1's search is *really* picky about what you enter in, and even then, I often get a lot of "huh?" results. So I usually stick with the ISBN.

Nikkei has a good long article about the problems encountered in the course of negotiations between Amazon and Japanese publishers: http://www.nikkei.com/tech/business/arti...E0E5E2E0E5

The takeaway is: "As early as June or as late as this fall." (I doubt we'll know, until Amazon's Japanese Kindle store actually opens, whether they'll accept credit cards from outside Japan).

Well, here's hoping for June and that they accept all credit cards from wherever. Sure would be nice. (And maybe I'll have my VPN running by then!)

Hope it works out in our favor once everything is said and done. I commute to school by train (1 hour each way) so it'd be an incredible tool to have.

From the Nikkei article:

"　この数年、キンドル上陸に関して幾多の臆測が駆け巡った。が、実のところ正確な情報は誰もつかめていない。"

This is the first time I've seen sometime just say "が" at the beginning of a sentence.
I've heard "ですが" used before, but just "が" is new to me.

Fillanzea Wrote:Nikkei has a good long article about the problems encountered in the course of negotiations between Amazon and Japanese publishers: http://www.nikkei.com/tech/business/arti...E0E5E2E0E5

The takeaway is: "As early as June or as late as this fall." (I doubt we'll know, until Amazon's Japanese Kindle store actually opens, whether they'll accept credit cards from outside Japan).

Thank you for the article, it was very interesting.
And for the が at the beginning of a sentence...I think it's not *that* rare, but I remember I was shocked too when I first stumbled on it (If I recall correctly I found it for the first time when I was studying material around 2級 level). I feel that that が is far less formal than "XXXXX。しかし、"　and it's more "snappy" than とはいえ (having said that....),　一方 (used when comparing opposite things/data),　にも関わらず (despite/ in spite of). The meaning is something near "On the other hand/ however " but depending the contest both しかし/しかしながら and 一方 could be translated in that way... I don't know if if helped (probably not) but I think I can't explain it better, sorry :/

chamcham Wrote:From the Nikkei article:

"　この数年、キンドル上陸に関して幾多の臆測が駆け巡った。が、実のところ正確な情報は誰もつかめていない。"

This is the first time I've seen sometime just say "が" at the beginning of a sentence.
I've heard "ですが" used before, but just "が" is new to me.

Really? I'm just an intermediate who hasn't been reading much that isn't light novels, but I know I've noticed it being used like that. Maybe because it's not as formal as Shaku said.

Any update on this?

Reviving an old thread rather than starting a new one.

Seems like amazon should be bringing Kindle to Japan soon.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nb20120...-uP0CvSomU

BooBooQ88 Wrote:Reviving an old thread rather than starting a new one.

Seems like amazon should be bringing Kindle to Japan soon.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nb20120...-uP0CvSomU

Yeah, right now the front page of www.amazon.co.jp is dedicated to a sign up for email notices about the Japanese Kindle.

The e-reader market is finally heating up in Japan.

Rakuten (the Amazon of Japan) will accept pre-orders starting July 2nd.
Amazon plans to release their e-reader sometime this year.