I'm really excited about this. It'll be great to finally have access to Japanese books at a reasonable price. I really hope they update the software to support vertical text though, and a Japanese dictionary would be nice as well.

Yes, this is great news!

TheVinster wrote:

So can we expect the U.S. Kindle's store to offer Japanese books? I didn't actually read the article, just what you wrote, so I'm not sure if it says. I'll definitely be in the market to purchase a Kindle if we can look forward to having this cross-compatibility.

I hope so...I went to the German Kindle store, and copy & pasted a random book title into the US Kindle store search, and not only did it find it, but I could buy it there too. I haven't tried it with the French Kindle store, and it might not work with all books, but I'm hoping it will. By the way, I just noticed this section at Amazon.com. It seems to have mostly translations of books in English, but it's bigger than I thought they would have. Has anyone tried it out yet?

EDIT: Ah, never mind. The Kindle links there lead to the English versions, except in this section, which mainly has books about horse racing.T-T

Last edited by Bokusenou (2012 April 08, 2:29 pm)

Splatted wrote:

I'm really excited about this. It'll be great to finally have access to Japanese books at a reasonable price. I really hope they update the software to support vertical text though, and a Japanese dictionary would be nice as well.

I second that!

chamcham wrote:

Even if Amazon Japan launched only with Kadokawa, I'd be happy.
At least you'd be able to download Japanese novels to a Kindle.

Even if the other major publishers don't jump on, I'll take
whatever I can get in the Kindle store.

Looks like taking your advice and waiting is proving to be the right direction. I'd rather get an e-reader and be able to read J-books off of kindle. Then again, if it has reading/dictionary look-ups. I have no doubt we would get it the first day if comes out haha.

Yeah, it really is better to wait now.
I'll probably try to get whatever Amazon comes out with.

But my intuition says that the $100 Kobo e-reader that
Rakuten wants to create will be what'll take the Japanese
market by storm.

Especially since Rakuten is considered the Amazon of Japan
and Japanese people prefer Japanese companies.

I don't know too much about this kind of stuff, but couldn't you just get the books from the Japan Kindle Store? Worst case, it seems you could use a proxy, download the books to your computer and transfer them to your Kindle via USB. I've never had any problems getting books from the US Store to my Kindle in Japan.

@rich_f I have a Witopia VPN which lets me switch nodes between a list of about 30 cities worldwide. I mostly use it for security, plus listening to Pandora and watching Hulu from the UK, but I've also used the Tokyo node for a variety of things, and it works perfectly and reliably. I'm connected to the VPN 24/7 and it's only dropped momentarily about 4 times in 6 months. I highly recommend them, not very cheap but as you say you get what you pay for.

As for international Kindle store access, I regularly switch my kindle account between different countries. I set the address to a McDonalds address from that country, and have never had any problems then downloading books.

Last edited by Blahah (2012 April 09, 1:03 pm)

Or maybe Blahah is one of those spambots....lol....j/k........

I'm sure there will be a way to work around it, but if they are strict enough you may need to have all of a mailing address in Japan, a Japanese credit card, and a Japanese IP address. It's not that you can't buy mailing services, proxy server services, and whatever else... it's just an expense and a hassle.

I'll probably keep buying physical books from kinokuniya for the forseeable future unless the kindle works without a lot of jumping through hoops and extra costs.

Last edited by SomeCallMeChris (2012 April 09, 5:31 pm)

Hmm... I wonder... I never saw them when I was in Japan, but do they have pre-paid credit cards in Japan like they do in the US yet? You can buy them in stores in the US with a pre-set balance on them, and once you get one, you can refill them online. (I got one as a rebate card.) They're essentially low-balance debit cards, I guess.

I kind of doubt that they'd have them in Japan already, though-- Japan is pretty conservative when it comes to those sorts of things. But if they existed, it would make circumventing all of that stuff much easier. (So much BS involved. Ugh.)

Ah, one other thing-- I found out that Linode doesn't have an issue with using your Linode as a VPN server or as a proxy, so long as you don't do illegal stuff with it or otherwise cause a nuisance. And as they have a Tokyo datacenter, I could set one up for myself and move all of my crap off of DreamHost for about the same price. Hmm. I wouldn't use it as a VPN 24/7 anyway, just every now and then. (like accessing the JP Google Play, etc.) So it's pretty tempting.

rich_f wrote:

Hmm... I wonder... I never saw them when I was in Japan, but do they have pre-paid credit cards in Japan like they do in the US yet? You can buy them in stores in the US with a pre-set balance on them, and once you get one, you can refill them online. (I got one as a rebate card.) They're essentially low-balance debit cards, I guess.

My understanding of Japanese banking system may be wrong, but it seems the concept of debit card/prepaid debit card is something alien here. Last week I applied for a *real shining Japanese* credit card at the post office (ゆうちょ銀行) but they refused my apply as I have a too low income. Last time I tried to use my stupid gaijin mastercard (at ヨドバシカメラ) I was made to wait for 20 minutes because they had to verify stuff and god know what else. At least Amazon.co.jp works well with my gaijin credit card.

chamcham wrote:

I really hope Amazon does the Kindle justice in Japan.

You're not the only one D;

rich_f wrote:

Yeah, my gaijin credit card works with amazon.co.jp and a lot of other places in Japan as well... but randomly it didn't work at a few places. Who knows why.

I was just wondering if the lock out would be as complete as the iTunes lock out or not, and if so, would there be a way around it worth bothering with. (That is, would it just be an Internet address thing, a physical address thing as well, or would they go so far as a "Do you have a JP CC?" thing.)

Shipping eats into 1/3 of my costs for books from Japan, and that's when I use SAL. Oof. I love having a physical copy, but if I can have a Kindle copy for cheaper than retail, immediately on my tablet, *and* no crippling trans-Pacific shipping fees, I'm willing to look into ways around any roadblocks in my way.

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?)