#I'd like to make one of these about making a honto.jp account in the first place but

[chouhatsumimi]

How to Get (Free) Manga in Japanese from Honto.jp*

(*If you already have an account!)

I hope to get out a post about setting up an account sooner or later, but we'll give this a go for now!

Go to honto.jp There's an option to use the site in English, but we're skipping that for now. We're also only buying digital at the moment, so we're going to skip worrying about shipping. Close the pop-up.

2. Type the name of the book/series you're looking for into the search bar. This time we're looking for とつくにの少女, The Girl From the Other Side. (Note that I tried searching for 外国の少女 and didn't get the correct results, so do be careful how you type in what you're looking for.) Unselect the green option (紙) from next to the search bar, since right now we're only looking for digital (電子). Then click 検索.

3. You can see various volumes of the series appearing below. Right now it's showing up with the most recent at the top, so we'll scroll down until we see とつくにの少女（１）. Alternatively, they often sell sets up to the most recent volume released, so if you want to go all in, you can look for the option [全1−11 セット] とつくにの少女. In this case we need to scroll to the bottom and go on to the next page. Just a note that they do sell "complete" series even if the series is still publishing new volumes, and you'll have to buy future volumes as a new purchase. Also, it will not allow you to purchase both the full set and a single volume of the same series at the same time. Buying as a set vs. buying individually does not affect how the volumes appear in your library, but it can affect how coupons apply sometimes, if there's a deal on sets.

4. Here we are! とつくにの少女（１）! If you don't want to buy it right now, you can click 欲しい本に追加, but we're purchasing, so we're going to click the big orange (電子書籍を)カートに入れる.

5. Now you can see it's changed to カートを見る, and there's one item in our cart up top! Before we check out, though, let's take advantage of some of the perks of using honto.jp.

6. By hovering over Myメニュー at the top right, we can get to あしあと抽選ポイント and クーポン一覧.

7. Let's visit あしあと抽選ポイント first. You earn points by buying things on the website (1 point for 100 yen, I think?), but you can also enter the point lottery for a chance to win free points every day! Usually you only get one point, but it's still fun and a penny saved is a penny earned, right? Click the big blue button that says あしあと抽選にチャレンジ！

8. Next go to クーポン一覧. Go through and collect 取得する on the right side of all of them, we don't care. They're free. Most of them are for smaller publishers and only apply to specific books we're not interested in, but the ones at the top are going to help us get 20%~25% off if we're lucky! 25% is about the best deal you get on honto.jp, every once in a while you may get 30% or perhaps 40%. There are better sales, but they won't apply to the popular items.

9. All our coupons now having turned from blue to gray and saying 取得済み, we go to our bonus round... the free manga area! Click the logo in the top left to go back to the main page, and then look for 無料の電子書籍 right underneath the search bar.

There are hundreds and hundreds of free options, usually the first or first few volumes of a series. (They're to get you to buy the rest of the series, but they can save you some money!!) A lot are kind of whatever, but there's usually a few really good ones there, case in point Blue Giant (first 4 volumes) and Shadow House (first 3 volumes) are free right now! Sometimes they're only free for a limited amount of time after which they'll still appear in your digital library but you can no longer open them, but we don't care about that right now, go get your free stuff!

You can add the first volumes to your cart very quickly by clicking the orange button underneath the covers, but if you want all the free volumes, click on the cover to open in a new tab, which will take you to the page for the first volume. Click on シリーズ一覧 under the title and author, and that'll take you to a list of the volumes like we saw before, if you scroll down.

Now that we're here, go crazy hitting the orange button, but make sure you're doing it on the volumes that say 0円. They like to mix the paid volumes in with the free ones. If you look at the title you can see the free ones are only going to be available to read until March 16th, but whatever! Free stuff, even if it's temporary!

Something weird is going on with Shadow House, I don't know why there are two different free ones, I think that's an error on the part of the site. We'll just pick one for each volume. This one says 期間限定無料配信, so I think that means you get to keep it as long as you get it for free during the free availability period!

10. Now that we've rounded up what we want, click on your cart (電子書籍のカートを見る) in the top right. This'll pop up when you hover over the cart icon.

Look over your list, make sure your free books are free, and your total off to the right is what you're expecting, then enter your password on the right to continue, then hit the orange button that says 購入の手続きへ進む.

11. Now it pretty much looks the same, except we're logged in. It saves your payment information, so you won't have to enter anything (danger!! if you like buying books, there's no step of having to get out your credit card to make you think about your life choices!)

BUT we do want to save money, so we'll use our coupons and points! Click on the white box with the blue outline that says クーポン/ポイントの利用

12. Apply your coupon!! (One per purchase). But see, this is why we collect all the coupons, because apparently とつくにの少女 happens to be from one of the publishers that has a good sale on now! I think it automatically applies the best one, but it's good to check, especially if you have more than one item in your cart that costs actual money. You can see how it reduced from 605円 on the previous screen to 363円 here. By clicking 全て利用する on the right, I can also apply all my points to bring it down that much further! (Or click the lower options to use some or none of your points.) If points expire, I buy things off this site too frequently to have noticed... Then click 変更する in blue at the bottom to save your changes.

13. STOP, think about if you're ready to pay!! Then to finish, click the orange ご注文を確定 on the right! You can see I'll earn 2 pts to save on future purchases from this order. (It looks like it's less than 1 per 100円...)

14. DONE! You can open up the app on your preferred device, download your new purchase(s), and start reading! You can also read in-browser by clicking ブラウサで読む.

You'll see your purchases on My 本棚

Hover over the cover to bring you to this screen, then select シリーズの本棚を見る to go to the mini-bookshelf for all the volumes in that series (I only have one of とつくにの少女, but that's what shows up anyway).

It shows me the volumes that are missing in gray, but if I hover over the one I have, I again see ブラウザーで読む. Click on that to finally read!

Ta-da! I think it also pops up with instructions about using the arrow keys to move the pages, or your can click on the sides of the pages to get them to advance in that direction.

Happy Reading!!!