Review Insights · Google Play
BOOK WALKER - Manga & Novels
BOOK WALKER · 12,785 ratings · ★ 4.3
4.3
★★★★★
12,785 ratings
🎯 Build a better version
Top complaints - extracted from 49 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"store"
8 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "this used to be a ebook reader with a poorly connected link to their store. Now it is a Store Page with a poorly connected ebook reader. Good luck trying to read your purchased ebooks/Manga if you don't have an internet connection" - Lew Notarnicola
2
"bookwalker"
8 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They will steal your money do not support bookwalker." - Gui 66
3
"read"
7 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "this used to be a ebook reader with a poorly connected link to their store. Now it is a Store Page with a poorly connected ebook reader. Good luck trying to read your purchased ebooks/Manga if you don't have an internet connection" - Lew Notarnicola
4
"purchased"
7 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "this used to be a ebook reader with a poorly connected link to their store. Now it is a Store Page with a poorly connected ebook reader. Good luck trying to read your purchased ebooks/Manga if you don't have an internet connection" - Lew Notarnicola
5
"update"
7 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "the accessibility of the app was the main reason I would have bought any digital. making it a browser to see new updates doesn't discourage me of taking my business elsewhere man even the amount of information they give you on said browser …" - Jonathan Soriano
6
"books"
6 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "this used to be a ebook reader with a poorly connected link to their store. Now it is a Store Page with a poorly connected ebook reader. Good luck trying to read your purchased ebooks/Manga if you don't have an internet connection" - Lew Notarnicola
7
"anymore"
6 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "This app was fairly functional, and has now lost a significant amount of its utility with the recent changes. You can't access the store, add to your wishlist (which doesn't exist anymore anyway) or view upcoming sequels. This app now only …" - The Flyest Nihilist
8
"website"
5 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "This app was fairly functional, and has now lost a significant amount of its utility with the recent changes. You can't access the store, add to your wishlist (which doesn't exist anymore anyway) or view upcoming sequels. This app now only …" - The Flyest Nihilist
9
"been"
5 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "This app was fairly functional, and has now lost a significant amount of its utility with the recent changes. You can't access the store, add to your wishlist (which doesn't exist anymore anyway) or view upcoming sequels. This app now only …" - The Flyest Nihilist
10
"download"
5 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Ridiculous 😂 the store doesnt even work in the app because the website changed domains or whatever. There goes half the apps functionality. The reader is still clunky and slow. opens up on a white screen instead of the cover image so it fe…" - Marigold Marigold
11
"book"
5 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "this used to be a ebook reader with a poorly connected link to their store. Now it is a Store Page with a poorly connected ebook reader. Good luck trying to read your purchased ebooks/Manga if you don't have an internet connection" - Lew Notarnicola
12
"downloaded"
5 negative reviews mention this · 10% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I just downloaded this app and I can't even sign into the app I've tried multiple times" - Jovis Tay
📋 All 49 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
authetication issues in apr21 release. breaks android tablet logins
There is a bug in the search feature, which causes the app to suddenly crash when using the search text feature.
i love reading manga with this app, but the removal of the store from the app is making it unnecessarily difficult to buy books, the constant pop ups and the inability to use google pay is infuriating, why was the store removed from the app in the first place
This app was fairly functional, and has now lost a significant amount of its utility with the recent changes. You can't access the store, add to your wishlist (which doesn't exist anymore anyway) or view upcoming sequels. This app now only exists to read what you've purchased from the website, which also lost most of its functionality in favor of a "better" UI design. This whole migration has been atrocious, and I forsee a lot fewer purchases since they've made it so much harder to do anything.
Ridiculous 😂 the store doesnt even work in the app because the website changed domains or whatever. There goes half the apps functionality. The reader is still clunky and slow. opens up on a white screen instead of the cover image so it feels broken. still no way to download an actual copy of your purchased book. Apparently this app is the "old one"so the Global app is not available despite the emails?
the accessibility of the app was the main reason I would have bought any digital. making it a browser to see new updates doesn't discourage me of taking my business elsewhere man even the amount of information they give you on said browser is worse. they must've lost some big partnership or they're "starting fresh".
Retiring the store on the mobile app was incredibly stupid. Reading on the mobile app is more convenient, and now I have to navigate to the website to buy a new volume of a series instead of being able to do it in the app? Why?
I just downloaded this app and I can't even sign into the app I've tried multiple times
They will steal your money do not support bookwalker.
Over 24hrs and the application and website are still down. Additionally there has been no update on an ETA for the handover updates to finish. while I'm grateful I can still access my purchased titles, it's unacceptable that we customers have been left in the dark regarding maintenance extensions. Communication is imperative, and currently there's been none of it.
Storefront is locked to the device language so I can't get Japanese books even though I'm in Japan! No good! Judging by the older reviews, you used to be able to switch but now they won't let you? But you can on iOS? Come on now.
For the last few days, startup needs 3-5 mins, navigating between menus is also much slower than usual. I cannot load the customer inquiry form, it just fails both in the app and browser.
アプリが立ち上がりません。アプリを開いても5秒もせずに落ちる、、、 インストールし直しても、改善しませんでした。 大手なので安心していましたが、使えずとても残念です。
cant login using facebook
What's the point of download if you need to login to access the downloaded content. Why have an app at all? I wanted to use it while on an airplane but couldn't because I can't login.
No longer working with old Android
Bookwalker app has stop working for some reason, it kept asking me to update the app and sending me to the store page but without any update. I tried opening again but without clicking the pop up for update and it just closes the app. Same thing when I uninstall and reinstall the app. It cannot open up anymore and there's no update to update it. What's up with that?
They appear to have started playing favorites with genres/demographics in their sales. For example, in the past 2 months: -BL enjoyers got a 30% off sale -TL/Smut enjoyers got 30% off and 25% coupon -Ecchi enjoyers only got 20%/25% points back (no sale) If you like ecchi then your only hope is that it will be included in a different type of sale. They also removed the "Find Them Here" page that listed series other stores dropped, mostly ecchi. Seems they no longer care about my demographic.
Devices with Android15 could only read the comics but could't open the novels
too much expensive
Bro I just wanna access the JP store to buy untranslated works, but it's only possible on browser
Display language fixed to device language settings. need a way to set it for the app only.
can't change the language freely. eng to jp
All time worst. I used to use this app when the Japanese Yen currency is still active years ago. Now, they do their own business in USD currency. Not my favorite app anymore. May you rot to the ground and don't come to me unless the Japanese Yen currency is returning. And don't even reply to me Sincerely, Former Bookwalker User Yeah, like I said, if you can't revert back to Japanese Yen, don't come back. That's it, because Japanese Yen is the only way I can buy light novels, not USD. SHAME YOU
Can't change language.
Can't even open the app, at all. Immediately crashes.
We have to give money
The app is fine for purchasing ebooks, bad for reading them. Why is there not an option to keep screen awake? One basic function on an app that requires you to stare at your screen for a few minutes without interacting with the screen. Edit: Feature is still missing, just buy LN from a different source like JNovel Club. They are DRM-Free and removed the membership requirement to buy books. From what I've seen, you can download a book you've purchased and use 3rd party reader apps you prefer.
They have essentially installed spyware on this app now. Sorry I don't trust any company to track me and my other activities due to how shady big corpos are. If you have a older version of the app don't update it until they get rid of dang tracking. Seriously I expected better from both Kadokawa and bookwalker. Asking to not be tracked is not same as saying no to tracking people data it's a great way to word it weaselly enough where bookwalker can decline your request to not track you
Even more issues. Can't download/read properly on some devices anymore due to "isn't responding" issues since a previous update if I have more than maybe 30 downloaded. And yes, I had already tried to update to latest version (at the time). That is what broke things. Haven't used this to read in months now with no fix in sight. Power outages specifically cause your login credentials to expire, so you can't read since you can't auth. Best to stay in airplane mode except when downloading.
Google play payment always fails / not reflected on my account. The payment history in google play history was always successful, which means I am already charged for this, and yet not receiving the products I purchased. In this environments of companies are found to scam their customers all the time, this should not reflect good on your company's reputations. Please fix ASAP
I was thinking highly of this app until I got the 403 forbbiden message and now I can't do anything. All that money wasted...09/09/24 I still can't log in, it just sends me to a blank page or says mi account is locked... WTH? You guys could at least cancel mi orders since you won't let me read them.
Very bad app
I was very happy with the app until it suddenly decided to tell me it would be tracking me across all other apps for marketing reasons with no clear way to reject permissions. This is super creepy. I'll be deleting the app soon, and you can bet I'll stop using the website, too, since this is how they treat their customers. Edit: You should still not be tracking me across apps. Options were "allow" and "ask not to track", which is legally distinct from a "no".
Using the app to read is a painful experience every single time. If you're offline, it can take a minute anytime you open the app for it to sit there and wait for requests to fail. It tries to resync highlights EVERY time you switch to/from the app, and BLOCKS the entire UI while it does it. It's been awful for years, and it's only gotten worse over time. The experience buying content on BW is not too bad, but the app itself is horrendous.
At first I was so happy that I can buy japanese novel digitally and legally using google play to buy coins, but after the change, it became a no go for me. I can't buy japanese novel at all. This is the worst change that bookwalker ever made
It almost unusable. I don't know how but every 10-15 mins the app will get laggy and 2 min after it'll close.
If I paid for the book I should be able to download the EPUB/PDF Update: Thanks bookwalker for letting me know I can download the book in your garbage app, you know that's not what I meant. Also give me my money back you scammers 🖕
The store is fine, but the app is really weak. It performs poorly, slowly.
Latest update seems to have a memory leak issue. Normally the app would never take up more than 0.5GB of RAM on my phone no matter how long it has been opened. But now I have it opened only to read, and after only 10-20min, it is using over 2GB of RAM, starts lagging my entire phone, and breaking everything else I try to do, including even unlocking my phone to close the app. I now have to close and reopen the app every 10min to avoid the issue which is extremely annoying with the slow loading.
Great. Updated the app. Now the coins I bought before are not accessible to use when buying on the global site/app. Just great. Never buying here until this system is changed/utilized correctly. Very disappointed.
Suddenly can't purchase. Was able to do so seemlessy before, but now it's telling me my country is set wrongly in my Play account, when it all seems to be fine on my side. Does Bookwalker suddenly not allow purchases from my country? Why I suddenly can't add points by paying through Google Pay?? I'm not gonna recommmend this app anymore and instead urge my friends and myself to use other means.
The app is ok to use but there are a lot of area of improvement for the UI. Until recently they decided to unilateral change the payment system while not allowing users to exchange existing point to the new USD. It also not allowed to combine different payment method so it means the little amount of points left in the account is wasted if you have enough for a book, there is no way to use it anymore!!!!
this used to be a ebook reader with a poorly connected link to their store. Now it is a Store Page with a poorly connected ebook reader. Good luck trying to read your purchased ebooks/Manga if you don't have an internet connection
it can be better.
Ridiculously overpriced content. Charging anything more than a dollar per chapter is just nonsense
Updating review to my current opinion; The largest issue is and has always been excessively slow loading times for books that are installed to my device, supposedly. With poor internet connection, it can take an inordinate amount of time to load a book that is supposed to exist in my device's storage, and lack of internet has at times prevented me from accessing DOWNLOADED content I purchased. Review remains at 2 stars because of that
I have a love/hate relationship with the Bookwalker app. I love the app for making all the manga and LNs available that I can't find anywhere else, but the app's user experience is honestly painful. It's clunky, more difficult to navigate than it should be, slow to load, buying books is a pain. Please, please, please ... build a proper app with focus on design and UX and I will update this review to 5 stars. There are good examples out there to use as a guide.
Frequent connectivity and sign in issues. Requires sign in to view library of downloaded books.
Sentiment summary
83%
Positive (4-5★)
4%
Neutral (3★)
13%
Negative (1-2★)