Amazon Removes No Game No Life, My Next Life As A Villainess Light Novels

[Update 714/2020:] Yen Press confirmed that Amazon purposely had No Game, No Life banned from the site.

[Original article:] The light novel for No Game, No Life has apparently been removed from Amazon, along with My Next Life As A Villainess. The light novel series has reportedly not been available for purchase throughout the summer.

Sankaku Complex did a fairly in-depth article about Amazon removing some Japanese light novels from the service, in particular No Game, No Life.

As pointed out in the article, various users noticed that their pre-orders for the light novel, My Next Life As A Villainess, being unavailable on Amazon. J-Novel Club responded by saying that Amazon blocked the orders.

For those of you who may have preordered My Next Life as a Villainess Volume 6 from Amazon, @AmazonKDP arbitrarily decided to block the book from publishing and cancelled almost 1000 preorders today, we apologize for the inconvenience. We’ll try to upload again on the sale date.

— J-Novel Club (@jnovelclub) June 24, 2020

Amazon content review refuses to communicate any reason for these blocks, and multiple, sometimes daily contacts are producing little results… We will keep trying to find some way to get them to fix these issues or at least acknowledge them.

— J-Novel Club (@jnovelclub) June 24, 2020

Considering the timing of these issues, I suspect it is due to an over-reliance on automated content flagging systems and lack of competent human resources, but that is no excuse for refusing to fix errors when they happen.

— J-Novel Club (@jnovelclub) June 24, 2020

The topic managed to catch the attention of YouTubers like Clownfish TV, who did a video about it.

As noted in the original Sankaku Complex article, some people believe that the light novels were removed for having adult content, but it’s noted that the light novels that Amazon removed are typically rated between PG or MA15. That’s not to mention that Amazon still carries all manner of porn, sex toys, and other adult oriented material and statues.

Nevertheless, Amazon has not provided a statement as to why the light novels have been removed from the store.