It was discovered that online retail giant Amazon has been quietly removing Manga and Light Novel titles from their website. This was mainly noticed through titles published through J-Novel Club who took to Twitter to address the situation. You can check out the Twitter thread below:
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)
— J-Novel Club (@jnovelclub) July 14, 2020
Some of the titles removed so far are
- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord
- Clockwork Planet
- The Greatest Magicmasters Retirement Plan
- I Shall Survive Using Potions
J-Novel Club wasn’t alone in this either as a few Yen Press titles such as No Game No Life, OreImo, and Eromanga Sensei were removed as well. Yen Press made this statement on their Facebook page:
Sadly, we have confirmed with Amazon that they have opted to remove the No Game No Life light novels and No Game No Life, Please! manga from their platform.
Happily, there are other retailers, both physical and digital, we are sure would be thrilled to help you share your support for these titles in the form of cash exchanged for goods!By way of example, check out BOOK WALKER Global if you want to download and read in a matter of seconds, or if you want to treasure these books on your shelves, The Right Stuf has you covered!
Thanks for all your inquiries – and keep watching this space for NGNL news! (Hint…?)
The removals are claimed to be coming from consumer complaints with a nod towards censorship. J-Novel Club stated in their tweets that they weren’t even notified of anything and simply had their products de-listed from the site.
A Change.org petition was even created to persuade Amazon to reverse their decisions and/or halt the de-listing of popular Light Novel and Manga titles. If you are interested in signing the petition, you may do so here: https://www.change.org/p/all-fans-of-anime-manga-light-novels-stop-the-removal-of-manga-and-light-novels-from-amazon
On a personal level… as someone who writes Light Novels and has them published on Amazon, this is deeply disturbing. There has been no word on whether or not any titles published through Kindle Direct will be affected. It is a bit worrying to know that even my books might get pulled without warning for whatever reason. Perhaps it is time to find another place to do business with?
