Visiting Japan to buy anime figures, books and other anime goods that you can only find in Japan should probably be on your next vacation agenda. Japan always welcomes visitors from all over the world, however, it’s not easy for you to fly over every single time you have something you want to buy from Japan.
Thankfully, the internet makes shopping easier than ever and there are many online shopping stores exclusively selling anime and manga related goods. So here, we would like to introduce you to some Japanese online stores that you should definitely check out to fulfill all your Japanese needs.
Surugaya
Surugaya is a large Japanese store that sells all kinds of used items, mostly CD, DVD, books, comics, figurines and other small items.
The company offers products with an extremely affordable price. Most of the items are used, but some look and feel almost new while their price is significantly lowered. The prices of the items also change depending on the availability in stock.
The shipping fee is surprisingly low as well. If you purchase less than 1000 yen worth of goods, the shipping fee is 309 yen, which is already pretty good! It gets even cheaper when you buy something worth more than 1000 yen but less than 1500 yen. This time the shipping fee will only cost you 257 yen. The real kicker is that they ship you the item for free for spending over 1500 yen! It’s hard to find online stores that can beat them.
Surugaya packs their items carefully too, lowering risk of items being damaged during the domestic shipping.
You can find very rare items at Surugaya that are literally impossible to find anywhere else. Items appear randomly, since Surugaya not only sells items, but also buys items. So whenever they get a new item, it will be uploaded on their website.
You might be able to miraculously find a rare item you have been searching for a long time if you make their website a regular destination!
The items are mostly used, but there are no "junk" items. The descriptions of the items are as accurate as possible. If the item is damaged, it will always be clearly stated in description. On the other hand, if nothing is specified, it means that there is no damage or any other problems with the item.
A Guide to Surugaya's System
There is a field for search in the upper part of the page. Please, insert the keyword there, and click search.
You can input details (name of the item, manufacturer, year, JAN code) to help you find the right item.
Bandai
Bandai is one of the biggest toy manufacturers in the world that makes figures, assembly kits and games.
Bandai exports their toys all over the world, except for Bandai Premium Webshop.
Premium Bandai, or P-Bandai is the line of special super-limited edition kits.
They're only sold inside of Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
- It is the perfect place for people who likes animation, robots and toys. The company creates thousands of figures of famous characters, robots, and other toys.
- High quality and safety. Bandai's toys are made from the safest materials, and are subjects to rigid inspections.
Bandai's products superior quality and safety has won the most prestigious prize in Japan - Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Prize. - Bandai customer support is excellent. We remember one case, where a kit sent from Bandai had some missing parts.
After we contacted Bandai, the company sent us the necessary part just in a few days.
Ways to search for items is almost as same as Surugaya.
Yahoo! Auction
This is the largest auction website in Japan and although it’s not exclusive to anime, there are lots of pre-owned figures, books, toys, etc. with low prices.
One disadvantage of using Yahoo! Auction is that the items are used so there might occasionally be scratches or broken parts. Nevertheless, Yahoo! Auction is a must-see place if you want to find rare items you have longed for.
Animate
Animate is one of the biggest Anime/Manga retailers that has stores in every prefecture in Japan.
They sell a wide range of manga, magazines, games, DVD and figures. The company gets assigned licenses and they sell their own original products, so if you seek something you can never find anywhere else, you should check Animate.
Amiami
If you are a big fan of figures, you’ll love Amiami as it’s one of the largest online figure shops.
Tons of figures are listed on the website, from pre-ordered to discounted and used items with each categorized as below. There is a search box on top of the page. Amiami sell thousands of original products too.
Overseas Shipping? Zen Market has the answer!
Those of you who read this far must be wondering “How would I ever get those items if I lived abroad?” Well, yes, they don’t ship them abroad but that doesn’t mean there’s no way out! ZenMarket offers a proxy service that helps you buy items from Japanese online shops that don’t ship to your country. You can purchase from any of the online shops listed above in this article as well as other online shops like Amazon, Rakuten, Uniqlo and many more!
Let’s say you want to buy this pre owned One Piece figure set at Surugaya. You just copy the link of the item's page and paste it onto the search box of ZenMarket top page.
ZenMarket operators will check the price, the shipping fee, etc, and then you can make a payment.
For example:
- Price of product : 12,000 yen
- Domestic shipping fee : Free
- International shipping fee : about 4,000 yen if shipped to United States
- ZenMarket service fee: 300 yen
Total: about 16,300 yen
The service fee is always 300 yen per item whether your item is 500 yen or 50,000 yen.
Also, you don’t need to pay for getting your items consolidated, plus they can keep your items for 45 days without any charge. So you can buy several items today and next week, wait for them arrive at their warehouse and ask them to pack your items into a parcel.
Visit http://zenmarket.jp/ to find out more.