Still room to improve
It’s getting better, but since the separation from the japanese app there are was a mayor downgrade.
The app no has a comics appeal instead of a manga appeal.
We lost the bookshelfs and collections. The ongoing promotions are difficult to access.
You unfavorite something and it’s still marked as favorite. Sometimes the sort by option does not work.
Costs are higher and the discounts are less.
The app no has a comics appeal instead of a manga appeal.
We lost the bookshelfs and collections. The ongoing promotions are difficult to access.
You unfavorite something and it’s still marked as favorite. Sometimes the sort by option does not work.
Costs are higher and the discounts are less.
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Terrible reading experience
Can't increase the size of images... Each chapter is one long text file without proper pagination. This isn't an ebook reader. It's worse than the most basic text viewer. A total downgrade forced on me after changing device. Let me go back to the far superior and more user friendly Japanese app for my English ebooks. This is utterly unusable and should not have been released to the public.
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Response from developer
We are really sorry for the inconvenience. If not already done, can you kindly reach out to us via inquiry? Thank you very much in advance!
Interface is different
Haven’t read in a year and I come back to find ownership has separated from JP and there’s a new website and new app. I liked the simple UI of the old app. I miss the “read/unread” visual aid. And in place of the old “ xx% read” visual aid they put a small bar to give you an idea your progress but I like the exact number better than the bar. You can kind of create bookshelves like before but now they’re called “collections”. It’s not as visually appealing as the bookshelves because it just shows the books there in a row but I guess it works. I just miss how comfy the bookshelves felt. I’m still just starting to use the app and UI so I will come back and update this review as I continue to get familiar with it. I heard you can’t offline read anymore so I will be checking that next.
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Pretty Good
I don’t read a ton so I might not have all the issues others do. But this app has some really negative reviews and I’d just like to say it really is pretty decent. The browse section is pretty clean and easy to navigate. The library is neat. And it has a pretty good selection for someone who hasn’t read many manga or light novels at this point. My biggest complaint is the whole currency conversion stuff. I would love an option to just buy things with money not a fake coin but alas. Anyways, maybe this has just been a bunch of improvements since launch but I can confidently recommend this app to you.
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Downgrade from original
A complete downgrade from the original app. I have over a hundred books in my library and none of them are sorted. Old app sorted by alphabet, and grouped series together. Now its just a messy bookshelf. Also the only way to view downloaded books is by going offline. Old app downloaded books in order to read them but you could still view your collection even if they weren’t downloaded. There is also no more bookmark feature. Finally, if you were in middle of reading a book on the old app, just opening up the app automatically took you to where you left off. In the new app you have to manually go to your library and find the book in order to resume reading. The app is alright, but at the moment it is so much worse than the old app. Please work on this!
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Money hungry
Almost every single story they have is locked behind a paywall past the first episode. There is no amount of time that needs to pass before a new chapter becomes free, it is permanent.
Terrible experience
This app is so buggy!!! It’s unable to save my place in books correctly, its lags whenever I try to find new books (a problem both on app and site) the recommendations you see for other books are also of worse quality rarely relating to the book you are viewing. Lastly the worst issue is that I was completely unable to transfer my Collections over, I was told by support that it never got saved to the server so there is no salvaging it. I have so many books and it’s gonna take forever to setup new collections due to how bad the new system is, why can’t I mass select books?!
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Worst app to replace
This app is meant to replace the old one that everyone is used to using. The original release of this app was missing many features that made the old one 100x better to use instead. It felt more incomplete and unpolished even though it was meant to modernize the app. Initially, it lacked the ability to list your ebooks in series rather than listing individual volume or chapters. Yet despite it being finally added back in, its implementation was not user friendly. Now my biggest gripe that annoys me to no end is how illustrations are displayed in light novel ebooks. The previous app scaled the image up to fill the entire screen. This app doesn’t do that, nor is there any setting or option to do that. Manga appears to look fine but when it comes to illustrations, it just look small and shrunken down. I want to see every single detail the illustration has to offer so I can marvel at the artwork. I wish I could still use the old app and still access my ebooks. I knew the split and modernization of BookWalker as a whole was coming. But when it all finally went live, I felt like I regret having migrated everything to it. Everything about this app just screams poor implementation and rushed instead of polished and having feature parity. I truly love BookWalker as an ebook store for mangas and light novels. But ever since the split going live, it’s been depressing and disappointing.
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Response from developer
Hello! We are truly sorry for the disappointing experience with the new app update. We understand your frustration regarding how illustrations are displayed in light novel ebooks and the lack of feature parity with the previous version. Our development team is already aware of the issue and we are working on a solution. Thank you for your patience.
I did it the “wrong” way
I set up a new account with my existing email without realizing that wasn’t the “proper” way to migrate my purchased books from the previous apps. Now I need to make a new email account to set up a new account in order to have access to the old books that I’d purchased on the old BookWalker app, because now it’s apparently too late to use my existing email account. Why this is the only way (and why there is a whole new app) is beyond me, I just want to use my old email to access my purchased books.
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Bring back the old
The new app is rancid! The separation of Japanese and English titles is a terrible terrible TERRIBLE inconvenience, and honestly makes me lose a large portion of my respect for the app go down. On top of that, the new app for English titles is terrible lacking in features and usability compared to the old. IT AN ABSOLUTE DOWNGRADE! please consolidate the two apps again into the old system, because this is actually hell
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I dunno
I wish there was a free option with ads and then a payed option without ads. I wasn’t planing to use money on online manga I was hoping you could just watch it with ads- so I would appreciate the choice of doing an ads version just not way too many ads.
I miss the old book walker
I cant purchase books with real money anymore and have to buy the coins to buy a book. It also didn’t transfer over my read history from the old app. The interface is really sloppy too it’s so hard to navigate. I’m definitely going back to reading physical books again I can’t trust these reading apps.
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It’s better than launch but still rough
Okay, so originally I gave a one star but since then there have been improvements.
1. Offline downloading is now available
2. You can now sort by series and reading progression…mostly
Also, there are some things I like:
Reading is smoother than old the app and the app doesn’t crash like the old one.
You can also just keep reading to go straight to the next volume which makes binging easier
They also do seem to be actively working on improving the app
So why only 3 stars?
1. No bookmarks, no way to mark book as read (which since reading progress was lost from the old app and is not coming back) would have been nice so I don’t have to open and flip through a book to finish it)
2. If you sort by series, you can’t combine it with sorting by reading progression.
3. Light novel images don’t allow you to see the images fullsized or zoom in so, LN images can’t be viewed legibly on mobile devices
4. No bookshelves. Bookshelves were great for curating as well as grouping what you’re actively reading. Just having one big library makes it a pain.
Again though, I am hopeful it will work improve as it’s not the disaster it was at launch
1. Offline downloading is now available
2. You can now sort by series and reading progression…mostly
Also, there are some things I like:
Reading is smoother than old the app and the app doesn’t crash like the old one.
You can also just keep reading to go straight to the next volume which makes binging easier
They also do seem to be actively working on improving the app
So why only 3 stars?
1. No bookmarks, no way to mark book as read (which since reading progress was lost from the old app and is not coming back) would have been nice so I don’t have to open and flip through a book to finish it)
2. If you sort by series, you can’t combine it with sorting by reading progression.
3. Light novel images don’t allow you to see the images fullsized or zoom in so, LN images can’t be viewed legibly on mobile devices
4. No bookshelves. Bookshelves were great for curating as well as grouping what you’re actively reading. Just having one big library makes it a pain.
Again though, I am hopeful it will work improve as it’s not the disaster it was at launch
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Its ok…
‘-‘ i’ll give it 5 stars if its the same aesthetic as the OG bookwalker, I want a organizer and such
Please ‘-‘
Please ‘-‘
Do not use this app update
I brought multiple manga over a year ago and have been struggling for two months since they forced a move to a new app. After all this time I have an empty account all purchases gone and still cannot be recovered, the support team seem stuck on the same process which having done what they asked I cannot redo. If you force people to do something make sure the process works and they don’t loose what they worked to own. 0 stars if I could but I have to select at least one …
That was my original review there were lots of issues for me mainly caused by using a google account in transfer you can’t and have to go through login as email. Modern web browsers however auto login when detecting the option. I thank support for there time on this as frustrating as it was as they had to delete the account three times now I think it’s time to move email addresses
That was my original review there were lots of issues for me mainly caused by using a google account in transfer you can’t and have to go through login as email. Modern web browsers however auto login when detecting the option. I thank support for there time on this as frustrating as it was as they had to delete the account three times now I think it’s time to move email addresses
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Trash, nowhere near as good as the old one
A pointless update resulted in the old app becoming unusable and Japanese language only. The new app is complete and utter trash, and the prices have completely skyrocketed compared to what they used to be.
Tons of series were permanently removed and disappeared, so you might have the first two books, but then you have to switch to yet another app to buy books three onward.
Haven’t bought a single thing since they switched and I never will again, even though I’ve spent well over a thousand dollars on books before this. What a waste.
Tons of series were permanently removed and disappeared, so you might have the first two books, but then you have to switch to yet another app to buy books three onward.
Haven’t bought a single thing since they switched and I never will again, even though I’ve spent well over a thousand dollars on books before this. What a waste.
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Evil
I’m shocked. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on manga, and I’ve slowly downloaded my files for offline viewing, and arranged into my bookshelf collection.
Now out of nowhere, all my downloads are forcibly deleted, and I’m forced to a new app. And every file must be downloaded one by one again. I don’t even see a bulk download feature.
You cannot trust this company with your money. They have shown they will remove your content and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Now out of nowhere, all my downloads are forcibly deleted, and I’m forced to a new app. And every file must be downloaded one by one again. I don’t even see a bulk download feature.
You cannot trust this company with your money. They have shown they will remove your content and there’s nothing you can do about it.
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Just awful.
What kind of ebook reader closes what you’re reading so it can shove ads in your face when you open the app? Also, how did they manage to make the experience worse from there?
I used to be a pretty good customer. Not any more.
I used to be a pretty good customer. Not any more.
Bad to Moderately Acceptable
Overall worse experience than previous app
1. Cannot read books without internet connection
2. Cannot organize purchased collection by series
3. Cannot see un-purchased sequels to partially owned series
4. Images in light novels don’t scale properly and cannot be properly viewed
Same applies to the web version as well. How exactly does this “serve us better” ?
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Adding to previous review:
6/26/26
Updates have so far restored ~60-70% of the functionality of the previous app (now Japan store only).
Sorting your collection by series is now possible, downloads for offline are possible, image scaling seems mostly fine now. The UI isn’t awesome, but the bones are there for tweaking to make it better. Most menus require too many taps on a touch screen to access comfortably.
Biggest issue: no way to see easily see what un-purchased titles are available or soon to be released for series you own. It’s possible to see it from a particular series’s store page, but that’s slow to navigate two. On the previous store you could tell at a glance that a series had a newly released volume available.
Thus I miss that there are new volumes and don’t spend money on them.
1. Cannot read books without internet connection
2. Cannot organize purchased collection by series
3. Cannot see un-purchased sequels to partially owned series
4. Images in light novels don’t scale properly and cannot be properly viewed
Same applies to the web version as well. How exactly does this “serve us better” ?
————-
Adding to previous review:
6/26/26
Updates have so far restored ~60-70% of the functionality of the previous app (now Japan store only).
Sorting your collection by series is now possible, downloads for offline are possible, image scaling seems mostly fine now. The UI isn’t awesome, but the bones are there for tweaking to make it better. Most menus require too many taps on a touch screen to access comfortably.
Biggest issue: no way to see easily see what un-purchased titles are available or soon to be released for series you own. It’s possible to see it from a particular series’s store page, but that’s slow to navigate two. On the previous store you could tell at a glance that a series had a newly released volume available.
Thus I miss that there are new volumes and don’t spend money on them.
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Major downgrade
The previous app was better in almost every way. We can’t make bookshelves to organize our collections into groups, we can’t archive books we no longer wish to see, we can’t delete books from our library we no longer want. Used to love the comfy feel of the old app. The new minimalist setup feels like a major downgrade from what was. I wish I could immigrate my collection and go back to the previous app.
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