Although not targeted by authorities for closure requests under measures to battle the spread of coronavirus, many bookstores in Japan's major metropolitan areas have chosen to close or curtail opening hours, dealing a blow to book and magazine publishers.

Meanwhile, for the public whose appetite for reading has only increased as it responds to the government's stay-at-home requests, the pain of bookshop closures has been compounded by an almost total shutdown of municipal-run libraries in urban areas.

The day after Japan's state-of-emergency was first declared by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on April 7 in Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures, Akira Yamaguchi, an executive at Hayakawa Publishing Corp., was dumbstruck as he read the list of Tokyo bookstores that had decided to close for the time being.