Hey everyone, question for ya’ll. I’ve read threads on here discussing how you can make a Japanese Amazon account and link it to your Western Kindle (despite having to remove your Western Amazon acct). My question is, if I were to buy a completely separate Kindle for a Japanese account, would it make more sense to buy a JAPANESE Kindle (straight from Amazon.co.jp) or just another Western Kindle and put the japanese account on it?
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They are exactly the same product, so I don’t think it matters in any way. I ordered my kindle from Amazon.com, immediately deregistered it, and reregistered it under my Amazon Japan account. Worked perfectly fine.
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Okay, thanks! One last question: Will that automatically allow me to purchase from the Japanese Kindle store on that Kindle, or will I be restricted to buying Japanese Kindle products directly on a laptop/phone from Amazon.co.jp? Does that make sense?
You should be able to place orders directly from the kindle, though I’ve never done this myself. Do keep in mind that it takes some setup (adding a Japanese address to your account and using a VPN for a few orders) in order to buy digital content on amazon.co.jp if you’re living outside of Japan.
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I already have that set up, I’m using Tenso as a Japanese forwarding service. I already have my account set up so that it gets sent to their warehouse in Japan, and then they forward it to me in the US!
Could I jump in with a question? 
If you turn the VPN off after you’ve bought some ebooks will it once again lock you out?
I did it for a few orders, it worked fine.
I only used VPN for a first few purchases.
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I’ve done the same, though, at the moment, I live in eternal fear that I may be region locked again. It would be especially annoying considering I just used a free trial on hotspot VPN and would have to create yet another account on another VPN service, lest I start paying 
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I don’t know how much time passed since your first purchase, but it’s ok for me since May 
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I’ve gone for over a year (maybe close to two years) since using a VPN and I’ve been fine.
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Another option you have, if you still want to use your Kindle for your native location’s Kindle store. Use the Kindle app on your phone or your computer.
The Kindle app on Windows is kinda kick… butt. It allows you to create flash cards, which is really useful for reading Japanese when you also want to try to learn the kanji you read and don’t yet “know.” This isn’t possible with the actual Kindle reader, unfortunately.
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’ve done the same, though, at the moment, I live in eternal fear that I may be region locked again. It would be especially annoying considering I just used a free trial on hotspot VPN and would have to create yet another account on another VPN service, lest I start paying
Worst case scenario, they cannot block you from using the app on your phone or on your computer. I can’t see them ever blocking your content to your registered Kindle either. I’ve been buying Japanese Kindle content for 8 years according to my orders and not had a problem from the US, without using VPN ever.
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Oh I was wondering about this too. I use the kindle app on my phone and iPad and sometimes my computer. And I’ve been wondering if I can just change one of those to be linked with an account with a Japanese vpn?
No VPN needed. Log in with whichever account you want to use, and it just works.
The problem I have with it is, if you have 2 accounts you buy content (say one from US and one JP), EVERY time you log one account in, it removes the content from the other. This means you must download whatever it was you were reading each time, depending on how you handle it. Not a big deal with text based books as they are smaller, but audio books could be a pain. And it is something to keep in mind if you are using your device’s limited data plan (assuming you have a limited plan).
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Oooh could you elaborate on how to do this please? I’ve just started using the Kindle app on my laptop so I don’t have to constantly log in and out of my English/Japanese accounts on my phone.
I had to use a vpn when I wanted to order something on kindle again this week. I guess because I have ordered from my home address and then switching to the linked Japanese adress wasn’t enough. I had completely forgotten about it, so it took a while for me to figure out what exactly went wrong. It’s only necessary for logging into your amazon JP account for an IP location check. When I passed that, I added some free manga to my kindle app on my tablet with no problem.
For me, I have a Kindle Oasis. I use this for my English reading because I read mainly English books at this point. One day maybe I will read more Japanese books and want a Kindle reader for that but today, English content goes to the Oasis.
For the Kindle app, creating flashcards is easy. It is slightly annoying because of the way it copies the text, but it works.
When you have the book open you are reading, highlight the text you don’t know, like this:
Click Copy
On the right hand side of the Windows app, you have this icon:
press that. Create a New Deck (obviously you don’t need a new deck once you have created one, though I am looking at doing a deck per book or text I read just to keep some separation).
The next dialog asks for a Deck Name. Call it whatever you want. In this case I am still playing so I have Untitled Deck 1 (a useless name but I was playing).
Once you have the new deck created, click the deck name, and in the middle of the screen you have a big + Add a Card button; press that:
Here is where it gets a little annoying with how it pastes your content. As you saw in the example at the top, I highlighted my text and now I am going to paste it:
Highlighted in yellow is the text I wanted. In PINK, this is the Kindle book name, location, etc. In this way, you can see maybe this was made more for writing a term paper or something so you know the location of the text you wanted remember. Or it is a requirement of publishers. Or Amazon just thinks it is useful for some reason.
Easy to fix - highlight and delete it. Done.
Then at the bottom, you have the “flip side.” Click in there and type in whatever information you want. In this instance, I just translated the first word using Jisho.
Click Save at the top and you now have a new deck with your first flashcard:
And then you can test yourself with the Flashcard app:
It’s NOT Anki. It’s not WaniKani. But it is serviceable.
I believe you can export the cards but I have not done that since the app is serviceable for my needs.
Is that the kind of help you were looking for? Hope it helped. If not, let me know what else you may want to know and I will help if I know the answer.
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Ooo yeah I thought I had read that you needed to redownload things when you change accounts. So if I use one device solely for Japanese reading (via a JP Amazon account) and my other devices for my US Amazon account…I should be ok and not run into the issue? The redownloading just happens when you sign in and out of various accounts on the same device, right?
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Yes, that’s correct.
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Awesome, thanks for the clarification! 