Hmm, yeah you might be right. It lists my app-only devices like my phone, but I can’t select those options for downloading.
So you were able to get it working then? What steps/guide did you use for this approach?
I kind of used several guides (each had a part that didn’t work for me), so I can’t really point to just one.
The overall steps were:
-
Run Windows 7 in VirtualBox (because I’m on Linux and I didn’t want to hassle with doing this in Wine).
-
Download and install Kindle For PC. However, it has to be version 1.17 build 44183. Newer builds download ebooks that use a newer DRM format.
-
Buy the books via Amazon.co.jp in a web browser. (Nothing fancy here.)
-
Refresh the book list in Kindle For PC and the books show up.
-
Right-click on each book in Kindle For PC and select the “Download” option. This saves them in a folder in the user’s Documents folder.
-
Use Epubor Ultimate which I bought a license for to use with my Kobo purchases some years ago. This produces DRM-free copies, but they are still in Amazon’s proprietary format.
-
Download and install Calibre. I had to locate the link for the Windows 7 version, as newer versions are for Windows 8 and higher.
-
Use Calibre to convert the de-DRM’d Kindle ebooks to zip files.
You can probably skip Epubor if you can de-DRM right from Calibre. I could never get Calibre working for de-DRM the few times I’ve tried. Epubor’s never let me down (and has been well worth the US$50 or so one-time license fee for me). I never would have started buying digital manga (as opposed to physical, which takes up physical space that I was running out of at the time and can cost extra with shipping) without Epubor, and since then I’ve probably bought over 200 manga volumes digitally.
1 Like
Nice! Yeah, I don’t have a reason to change my process since I can remove the DRM with Calibre. I was mostly just curious. Personally, I only bother doing that with my actual books, which I then also convert to HTML format so I can easily search and review the text on my computer for studying. I buy too much manga to be bothered doing it for all of them!
1 Like
On my end, aside from my wanting to have non-DRM copies of what I buy, I have some interesting use cases:
- Since I shifted to working from home, I no longer read manga on an e-reader (with a few rare exceptions). That means needing to be able to read on my Linux PC, preferably without having to start up a virtual Windows environment. (Amazon has a web reader, but Kobo does not.)
- I use Migaku’s browser extension now for reading my manga just because it makes it easy for me to pick up from where I left off.
- Learning new kanji and vocabulary is very difficult for me, so I OCR the manga pages to generate frequency lists to know which words come up most often, as those are the words/kanji I’ll most likely see again after adding them to Anki.
I imagine my use cases combined are very rare…
1 Like
Offtopic: New series from カツヲ incoming.
I’m not interested in the zombie apocalypse genre, so if that’s the background for this (similar to School Live?), I’ll probably stick with still having a ton of GochiUsa and Bocchi I still need to read.
1 Like
They’re really going to slow drip this to one release per year, aren’t they?
https://books.rakuten.co.jp/rb/17209206/ (Listing for Complete Blend 3.)
Well, I’m still on Complete Blend 1. I’m sure I won’t reach Complete Blend 2 before the end of September.
Thanks for sharing! Now I have an excuse to buy some more manga around then. I’m actually not surprised they are doing one per year, and if anything this supports my theory that the series will end at 14 volumes. (If I haven’t mentioned, I think that because it would roughly line up with Cocoa graduating from high school + one extra season. Each volume takes about a season, except volume 8 pushed that out by a volume, so my original estimate of 12 became 14.)
As for why I think one volume of Complete Blend per year supports that:
- 2022: Volume 11, Complete Blend 3
- 2023: Volume 12, Complete Blend 4
- 2024: Volume 13, Complete Blend 5
- 2025: Volume 14, Complete Blend 6
- 2026: Complete Blend 7
Of course the main volumes could shift slightly into the early months of the subsequent year since they’ve been coming out in December the last 2-3 volumes. But overall it lines up with Complete Blend 7 coming out after the regular volume 14 comes out, while avoiding long delays between later volumes.
1 Like
The cover has been released.
1 Like
I wonder how long the listings were up before saw them. It’d be interesting if I just happened to look for info on the volume during a slim window between when the listings went up and the cover was added.
I know for the latest それでも, the listing was up something like two or three weeks before release, but the cover didn’t get added until a few days before release.
1 Like
It hasn’t been up for long. I sometimes search Amazon for “まんがタイムKRコミックス” and sort by launch date to see what’s coming out in the next couple months. I did this sometime last week and Complete Blend volume 3 wasn’t listed.
Here’s hoping I reach Complete Blend volume 3 in 2023, so I can check it out!
As I complete Complete Blend volume 1 this next week (which is material I did “reading without looking anything up” a couple of years ago when I knew a lot less vocabulary and kanji), 2023 will be the year I make good progress on continuing the series, which will be all new material to me unless some Complete Blend 2 was in the first season of the anime (only season I’ve watched so far).
1 Like
The anime (and most 4-koma Kirara anime adaptions I think) covers roughly two standard volumes per 12 episode season. So while it’s possible there’s some stuff from Complete Blend 2 in the first season of the anime, I would expect it to be minimal.
1 Like
For anyone thinking of checking out this year’s April Fool’s event, unless you are caught up with the manga don’t! It includes major volume 11 spoilers!
If you still want the downloadable wallpapers that you get for completing the event, I’ll post them here.
1 Like
Doesn’t impact anyone in this thread, but:
I imagine they’re retranslating volume one. SolPress’s release had…issues.
(I don’t know if “Chiyo” is a typo or if they’re actually going with that. I’m fine with “Sharo”.)
I mean, it must be a typo. Can’t imagine they’d just change the name on purpose.
I am very much pro “Sharo” as opposed to “Syaro”.
1 Like
