List of shops
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Purchasing from Japan
Buyfag store digest - Payment and shipping details for the major shops
MFC Shops Database - Subject to >opinions , take everything with a grain of salt.
Brand new figures, Paypal, EMS/SAL shipping. Amiami is often the cheapest.
★ - The store can undervaluate in customs declarations when asked.
Amiami - The “For sale in Japan only” disclaimer means jackshit. If it’s on the international site (except for things with batteries or alcohol), you can buy it. If the item is truly meant for domestic-only, AmiAmi does not even list the item on their international site. Charges domestic sales tax on most goods, which is hidden by the steep discounts. Main items that AmiAmi have for at a higher price than other stores are Cospa brand goods, where they are unable to discount the items at all, so the sales tax is apparent. (Updates at 13:00 JST).
HobbyLink Japan - Slightly poor quality control on verifying character and series names, can take some stock requests, discounts Cospa goods.
Big in Japan ★ - Low prices for some items (even lower than Amiami sometimes), limited/exclusive figures are sold, they accept upfront payments and have proxy and forwarding services. It will take a very long time to receive a response to an email, if they ever do.
Mandarake ★ - Mandarake is good for figures that you can’t find in shops from above.
Nippon-Yassan ★ - Similar to Big in Japan, although they offer slightly lower prices on exclusives. This is balanced out by them estimating the shipping costs which usually results in you paying more. They automatically undervalue. Their packaging can be quite bad, sometimes putting a box in a box with no padding.
e2046 ★ - Chinese shop, garage kits (recasts) and some exclusive pre-painted recasts. Quality varies.
Good Smile Co Store - Some GSC exclusives from time to time. 2000 yen EMS flat rate.
Native Online Shop - Much like GSC store, you can now pre-order Native products directly from them, sadly they don’t ship to as many countries as GSC store. As always be sure to read their help guide before you try to place an order.
Plamoya - Japanese vendor. Rarer, out-of-print merchandise available, but very expensive. Safe and secure packaging. Some goods are pegged on Amazon JP pricing.
CD Japan - You can sometimes find stuff that are sold out at the other big sites here. Almost all shipping options out there are available. Also CDs, DVDs, and games. Does not include Japanese consumption tax. Cheapest site for smaller items if you abuse coupons and pick SAL.
Play-Asia - Also CDs, DVDs, and Games.
Jungle ★ - Updates every day starting at 21:00 JST. Item quality is listen on the page, similar to Amiami's rating system. Prices can vary from being overpriced to under market prices depending on the figure.
Square Enix - Also has branches for other countries.
Solaris Japan ★ - Similar to Plamoya in that there is some rare merchandise to be found for high prices. Their preowned products can be very poor even with high ratings. Their friendly invoice system allows you to value packages at what you want.
Suruga-ya - Able to easily check out yourself (they take credit/debit cards and PayPal) and use a forwarding service. Used items are generally near perfect condition, but don’t be surprised if keychains come without their outermost packaging or batteries are missing from the clock. Actually used goods are marked Rank B (roughly equivalent to AmiAmi Rank C). Cheaper than their Rakuten storefront. Free domestic shipping starts at 1500 yen, constant time sales and combo sales (buy 5 items of same category to get 5% off, etc). They ship everything in huge boxes so take that into consideration.
Ixu's Deviance - French Euro store. Ships worldwide. Well priced and sometimes sells limited editions.
Amazon Japan - Recommended for heavier books since they have flat rate shipping. Any items that show up under the AmazonGlobal対象 option can be shipped overseas (non R-18 books/CD/BD/DVD/some figures); all other items will require using a forwarding service. If you have a cheap and good forwarder, Amazon JP has some of the most aggressive discount systems. Do not use a proxy unless you know exactly what you’re doing. To see what items are available for overseas shipping, select AmazonGlobal対象 from the menu on the left after making a search. Note that Amazon.jp rarely add items to the AmazonGlobal対象 category.
Most Japanese online stores like Animate or Movic now currently accept foreign credit cards for all items while offering domestic shipping, so you just need a forwarding service.
US Domestic:
Most US stores receive their stock 1-3 months after Japanese release date
Tokyo Otaku Mode - Higher than average figure prices but has free shipping on orders over $100. Decent points system with bonus points on Holiday orders. They will spam you with promo emails if you subscribe and their boxes are obnoxious. Better than average customer service. They have both Japanese and US based warehouses.
Animate USA - Animate’s US branch, has a lot of Animate-exclusive goods. Shipping is based more on volume than weight, so a very good deal on bigger orders or products (e.g. 1/1 scale Mami musket replica cost $11 Fedex shipping compared to $50+ from AmiAmi)
Anime Island - See section 9.
Crunchyroll - I know, I know, >CR, but the daily deals on statues and exclusives are generally good. Will sometimes run 20-25% off coupon specials. Premium+ Members get free shipping. You can snag Premium+ using a CR 2-day guest pass right before you order.
KirinHobby - Especially if you’re an American buying Kotobukiya figures.
Rightstuf - Frequent sales, good place to get manga and anime if in the US.
Anime Corner Store - Site looks like fucking shit, but it’s legit. Also have an Amazon storefront. If you sign up for their mailing list they send 10-15% off coupon codes often. Ignore their 5% off and wait for higher coupons.
Amazon - Last resort. Ask buyf/a/gs if you’re unsure. Typically if the seller isn’t from China or somewhere similar, it’s safe. Be sure to stick with vendors that are “fulfilled by Amazon”.
eBay - If you want to start a bootleg collection. Absolute last resort: Only buy from Japanese and North American sellers without Chinese-sounding names. Avoid China/Taiwan/Hong Kong sellers. Ask buyf/a/gs if you’re unsure. Even then it’s not infallible if they’re posting stock photos.
