Amazon Banning Some Manga & Light Novels

Hey gang. My Internet access is pretty poor at the moment, but I saw something disturbing and I thought I’d share it. It seems that Amazon is banning some light novels and manga titles, not only from Kindle, which is Amazon’s digital platform, but also physical copies as well.

First Alert

J-Novel Club, a publisher specializing in Japanese light novels and some manga titles, reported the following on Twitter on July 13.

We verified today that starting July 11th, all books in the series The Greatest Magicmaster’s Retirement Plan, I Shall Survive Using Potions (Manga+LN), How Not to Summon a Demon Lord, and Clockwork Planet (LN) are no longer available for sale on Amazon Kindle (except .co.jp)

We have received no notification whatsoever about this, and only noticed due to user complaints. Also, all preorders for Magicmaster 6 were forcibly cancelled today. After calling up Amazon, they said the books were removed from sale by Kindle Content Review but couldn’t say why

Then on the following day, J-Novel Club reported this.

Update: As of a few hours ago, Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash Volume 1, and Infinite Stratos Volume 3 have been blocked from sale by Amazon (they at least emailed us about it this time). Note, Grimgar Volume 1 was one of the very first ebooks we published more than 3.5 years ago.

Yen Press and Dark Horse Also Hit

In addition to numerous J-Novel Club titles being hit, Eromanga Sensei and Oreimo from Dark Horse and No Game, No Life from Yen Press have also been banned. In the case of No Game, No Life, the physical copies of the light novels and the manga are gone from Amazon’s site as well as the digital copies.

I’m only vaguely aware of Eromanga Sensei. However, I know what an eromanga artist does. And checking the art, it looks like some loli girls, including an elf chick, are involved. So I guess that was the problem there. Oreimo has some incestuous themes from what I understand. Never watched/read any of that.

That said, I do own both manga volumes of No Game, No Life. I bought them from Amazon. And yeah, it is somewhat ecchi (I haven’t read volume 2, but I did watch the anime, which didn’t seem as bad as Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA). Amazon is claiming the stuff they are banning doesn’t meet their global content guidelines.

Love Hina, UQ Holder, and Negima! Next?

As longtime readers of the blog will know, I’m a huge fan of Akamatsu-sensei’s works, starting with Love Hina. But all of his titles, including Negima! and UQ Holder are full of Barbie Doll nudity and ecchi content. And while I’ve never been a fan of this ecchi stuff, I’ve tolerated it, including the loli stuff.

But, if Amazon is cracking down on questionable, ecchi manga and light novel materials (except on their Japanese site), I don’t see how titles like Love Hina, Negima!, and UQ Holder don’t get banned as well. Granted, of all the banned titles, I’m only versed with one title. So I don’t know just how bad those titles are. But Akamatsu-sensei’s titles could easily offend some folks.

In Conclusion

At the end of the day, Amazon can do whatever it wants with its site. At least it isn’t a government mandated pile of nonsense. However, it “amazes” me how they can purge “naughty” titles it doesn’t like, but somehow, can’t seem to find the numerous pirate entries within its site. Heck, they’ll sometimes lump pirate crap with legitimate stuff.