Service

Rakuten Books

Japan, CommerceBeta

Try in Playground Open the API reference

Overview

Find titles across the Rakuten Books catalog with prices, release dates, stock status and review scores, look up a Japanese book by its ISBN, and browse genres to narrow a search.

Status

Operational

100.00%30-day uptimeAvg response341ms

Setup

Auth mode: Managed key
Credentials: A managed key scoped to rakuten-books
Sandbox: Not available

APIs

Selecting a row opens the reference for that API.

Method	Path	Summary
POST	/v1/rakuten-books/get-book	Looks up one Japanese book on Rakuten Books by its ISBN-10 or ISBN-13; hyphens are allowed. Use when the user gives an ISBN, for example from a barcode or a library record, and wants the title, author, price or stock status. Do NOT use for searching by name or for foreign books; use search-books or search-foreign-books instead. Returns the book with title and reading, subtitle, series, author, publisher, format, ISBN, tax-included price in yen, release date, stock status, review score and store link, and the Rakuten credit in attribution. Out-of-print and sold-out books are still found; an unknown ISBN returns NOT_FOUND.
POST	/v1/rakuten-books/list-genres	Returns one Rakuten Books genre with its parent path and direct sub-genres; 000 is the root with the seven top categories. Use when the user wants to browse categories or needs a genre id to narrow a search such as search-items, search-books or search-cds. Do NOT use to find products; use the search operations instead. Returns the genre id, name and level of the genre, its ancestors from the top, its children, and the Rakuten credit in attribution.
POST	/v1/rakuten-books/search-books	Searches Japanese books on Rakuten Books by title, author, publisher, format (such as bunko or comic) or a genre id under 001. Use when the user wants Japanese books with bibliographic detail such as kana readings, subtitle, series name and format. Do NOT use for foreign books, magazines, music, video or games; use search-foreign-books, search-magazines, search-cds, search-dvds or search-games instead, and use get-book when the ISBN is known. Returns books with title and reading, subtitle, series, author and reading, publisher, format, ISBN, tax-included price in yen, release date, stock status, review score and store link, plus totals for paging and the Rakuten credit in attribution. Results are limited to 30 per page and 100 pages.
POST	/v1/rakuten-books/search-cds	Searches music CDs on Rakuten Books in Japan by title, artist or composer, label, 13-digit JAN code or a genre id under 002. Use when the user wants albums or singles, such as an artist's newest releases or a CD by its barcode. Do NOT use for DVDs or Blu-rays; use search-dvds instead. Returns CDs with title and reading, artist and reading, label, album, single or mini album type, JAN, catalog number, track titles, tax-included price in yen, release date, stock status, review score and store link, plus totals for paging and the Rakuten credit in attribution. Results are limited to 30 per page and 100 pages.

Related guides

Issue a sandbox key and make your first reservation.
APIFuse holds the partner credentials. You hold one managed key.
Receive events such as reservation confirmations and delivery updates.
Service outages and gateway errors normalise into one error model.