# BookWalker: Manga & Novels — user reviews > 96 indexed App Store user reviews of BookWalker by M12 Media LLC, rated 1.60/5 from 135 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/bookwalker-manga-and-novels/id6738940313/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/bookwalker-manga-and-novels/id6738940313.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 8 · 4★ 4 · 3★ 14 · 2★ 5 · 1★ 104 ## Newest reviews (18 of 96) ### 3/5 — Still room to improve *2026-08-24, version 26.08.16* 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. ### 3/5 — Interface is different *2026-08-21, version 26.08.16* 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. ### 2/5 — Downgrade from original *2026-08-16, version 26.08.01* 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! ### 2/5 — I dunno *2026-07-11, version 26.06.26* 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. ### 3/5 — It’s better than launch but still rough *2026-07-05, version 26.06.26* 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 ### 3/5 — Its ok… *2026-07-05, version 26.06.26* ‘-‘ i’ll give it 5 stars if its the same aesthetic as the OG bookwalker, I want a organizer and such Please ‘-‘ ### 3/5 — Do not use this app update *2026-07-03, version 26.06.26* 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 ### 3/5 — Bad to Moderately Acceptable *2026-06-25, version 26.06.04* 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” ? ————- 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. ### 2/5 — Major downgrade *2026-06-22, version 26.06.04* 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. ### 3/5 — Great reading experience, But please add a library or bookshelf, organizational feature *2026-06-19, version 26.06.04* I have been a long-time user of the original BookWalker app, and I’m happy to say that after switching to the new app, All of the books I’ve purchased transferred over and I haven’t had any issues reading them. However, I’ve been purchasing manga through BookWalker for years and have built a very large collection. One feature I loved about the original app was the ability to organize books into custom bookshelves and arrange my library however I wanted. With the new app, there doesn’t seem to be a way to organize your collection, and if you have a large library like I do, it can be difficult to navigate all of your purchased books. This app would be a 10/10 for me if it added a digital bookshelf feature that allowed users to organize their purchased books in whatever way works best for them. ### 1/5 — Horrible app *2026-06-12, version 26.06.04* This app has ruined what made Bookwalker so enjoyable. I no longer feel Like I am purchasing books in a digital store, for my own personal library. Instead I feel like sales are being shoved down my throat with popups every time I try to use it. Yeah, it sucked that I had to buy manga off the website only, it I would give anything to go back to that instead of this horrible disaster of rebrand. Bookmaker use to be relaxing to purchase from, now it is stressful and bad. Instead of just adding a buy feature for the app, they are now trying to force you to purchase their digital currency instead, which just feels like they are trying to take advantage of us. This makes me wish I had purchased pre with the old app in hopes that this would never have come to be. I only use this app now for Bookwalker as a company, it this global reader app insult. ### 3/5 — Over all Fine. One issue I cannot over look *2026-06-10, version 26.06.04* Over all the new app is fine and the think the good and bad even each over out in the broad strokes. The good: - it does not take multiple attempts to open the app like the old app sometimes took -when you have a book open you can click the title to see the other books in the series and open them from there - seems to load faster than the old app alert from the first time you open a book The bad: - no bookshelf or equivalent in the new app - opens to the store instead of your library, makes a worse user experience as it feels like a storefront first and not an e-reader, the storefront and obnoxious adds should be left for the website Now this is the one problem that I really cannot overlook, the issues with downloading books. As I’ll be at sea for extended period of time with limited internet I like to download media and barriers to this make ethical consumption all the more difficult and is what drives many to turn to piracy. That said the issue I am having is that when I select a title and choose to download if sometimes it will get the “Download scheduled” tag and then never download eve after other things are done downloading, sometimes I can just cancel the scheduled download then redo it and it works then but the real bug is that for a some titles it gets stuck with that scheduled download and I cannot even cancel it. ### 1/5 — Inferior to predecessor in almost every way *2026-06-10, version 26.06.04* Can't resize books/series, can't hide title/view cover only, can't make libraries or folders (hope you didn't organise stuff previously), cant even group by purchase period (hope you enjoy scrolling down), can't see unpurchased volumes (wishlist is now favourite because???), previously read? Amnesia, gotta wait to import it from previous app. Why is there 2 tabs for the store??? Download for offline is a thing, yay, why can't I filter to see downloaded? No, no, you can, scroll right on the top bar... The silver lining, scroll reading on manga and more light novel settings for text formatting (dyslexia sucks). Too bad getting to the reading is a chore now. ### 1/5 — Tudo pago *2026-06-09* Tudo dentro do aplicativo é pago, apenas o primeiro capítulo é disponibilizado **Developer response:** Hello! We are really sorry for the confusion. We are a webstore, so most of our offered titles are not for free. However we also offer a few free titles. ### 3/5 — I can actually read *2026-06-07, version 26.06.04* Downloads still don’t work with anything, but I am able to read much easier as long as I don’t close the app. It does not seem to transfer real well across devices still at beginning of the last chapter you were on. Massive improvement you can display by series and can sort at the same time. ### 3/5 — Faster App with offline reading but with room for improvement *2026-06-05* Advantages of the new app -> Noticeably faster performance, no restriction of licenses to Bookwalker only, a faster/smoother manga-reading experience, offline mode. Disadvantages of the new app (version 2.6.26) -> Ads for new Mangas via outdated pop-ups that you can quickly tap away, outdated UI without Liquid Glass on iOS for the controls, and much more—plus no attractive, modern library design (the old design of the Japanese app, just updated and made smoother?!), nicer animations when flipping pages are missing and the ability to highlight text passages in case you forget where you were. UX Tips -> Keep in mind that many users remained loyal to Bookwalker & liked it because it didn’t feel like just another soulless e-reader app. Many look the same and often seem like a budget-friendly compromise for the company just to offer users the app alongside the website. What I really appreciate is the developers’ transparency with the roadmap. Please keep updating it and let us know what to expect. Transparent communication is key <3 **Developer response:** Hello. Thank you for your feedback. We apologize for any caused inconvenience. We will share your valuable suggestion to concerned sections so that we will be able to improve our service in the future. Please also make sure to update to our latest version to use our newest added features. We're looking forward to your next visit on BookWalker. ### 1/5 — Just use the Japanese version *2026-06-05, version 26.06.04* Delete this app and go back to the Japanese version we had before. Stop trying to sound like moving to this app was anything but a cash grab. The only functional thing is the store, which says where their priorities are. This kind of greed has lost me as a customer. ### 1/5 — Not good. *2026-05-31, version 26.05.09* I just downloaded the app today and purchased a managa series. I didn’t even get to start using the app or website not wven for one minute. I want my money back $7.92. Such a scam. I bet you will ask for transaction numbers or something. Well scam it is. Since I cannot find anything on the email or website or app. All I have is a screen shot of what I was charged in my email and the transaction in my account. How can I show you the pics to prove to you I got nothing after purchasing them? Please help. Thank you. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Terrible reading experience *2026-08-22* 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. **Developer response:** 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! ### 1/5 — Money hungry *2026-08-09, version 26.08.01* 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. ### 1/5 — Terrible experience *2026-08-08, version 26.08.01* 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?! ### 1/5 — Worst app to replace *2026-08-02* 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. **Developer response:** 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. ### 1/5 — I did it the “wrong” way *2026-07-15, version 26.06.26* 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. ### 1/5 — Bring back the old *2026-07-13, version 26.06.26* 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 ### 1/5 — I miss the old book walker *2026-07-09, version 26.06.26* 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. ### 1/5 — Trash, nowhere near as good as the old one *2026-07-03, version 26.06.26* 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. ### 1/5 — Evil *2026-07-02, version 26.06.26* 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. ### 1/5 — Just awful. *2026-06-29, version 26.06.26* 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. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Good for me *2026-06-02* Because they got the missing Books I was Looking for **Developer response:** Hello! Thank you for the high rating! We will continue to improve the app so that you can enjoy reading eBooks. We're looking forward to your next visit on BookWalker. ### 5/5 — Great app! *2026-05-27, version 26.05.09* I really like this app it’s soo cool and the price is great but the image quality sometimes doesn’t look that good which is not a big problem! ### 5/5 — Offline reading added *2026-05-12, version 26.05.09* Thank you. This feature is required for me. ### 5/5 — Awesome manga store! App is pretty good *2026-05-12, version 26.05.09* The new app now with offline reading is now mostly all I need. I do miss the Shelves from the previous app with ability to categorize manga on series, etc. The store though is the best manga store there is (I buy a lot of manga from various sources, mainly from Bookwalker.jp and now BookWalker). Look out for sales! ### 5/5 — Nice redesign *2026-04-21* The design looks really great — it honestly feels like a piece of art now. Some features seem to be missing for now (like the slider in the viewer), but I think they will come back later since the site was heavily updated and it says some functions will be restored. Overall, really nice redesign 👍 **Developer response:** Hello! Thank you for the high rating! We will continue to improve the app so that you can enjoy reading eBooks. We're looking forward to your next visit on BookWalker. ### 5/5 — Please go back! *2026-04-20, version 26.04.08* Terrible! Please go back to the old app. It was so much better. ### 5/5 — Garbage app *2026-04-17, version 26.04.08* I lost all of my purchases from my old account. Upon opening the app for the first time I was hit with a barrage of 7 or so pop-up ads for manga while trying to navigate the app. Password reset won’t work either. The app just gives an unexpected error. ### 4/5 — Pretty Good *2026-08-20, version 26.08.16* 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. ### 4/5 — Ups and Downs *2026-05-27, version 26.05.09* New app is mostly better, but still has some growing pains to work through. You’ll probably encounter any issues I’ve seen yourself, so I won’t spend a lot of time on that. What I will say: new app is faster on both old and new devices, has better reading options, and I love the way you can quickly flip through a book if needed. I find it weird that the arrows at the bottom move between volumes, but for certain shorter books this makes a lot of sense. Maybe make it configurable? Having the store be better integrated into the app is nice. That said, I’ll probably try to mainly purchase books from the website, since in app is a little more confusing. Makes sense though, with the cut that Apple takes, they have to do more to profit off the app sales. I’d recommend buying from the website anyway just to support the platform better, rather than giving Apple more pocket change. Excited to see where this app goes! ### 4/5 — Bruh *2026-05-25, version 26.05.09* I thought everything was free? Just mangas and novels and stuff but no. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-04.*